In their Memories
by vildtiger
Summary: "Sora, you have many friends around you, and each of them has a story, I'm too part of this story, even I cannot aid you in battle, I can help you and your friends understand the whole picture of this story. All the pieces lie where they fell. Let me piece them together for you, let me show you all the stories; In their Memories." connected to True friendship never dies
1. Chapter 1: Inside the Dark Realm

A/N: this happens before the main story "True Friendship Never Dies" even begins. and end at the beginning of the chapter: Dancing Waters Forming Bond.  
hope it help :)

_

_"__the Real of Darkness is a dangerous place, especially for those who doesn't have a resistance." My voice echoed in the room there has been my home ever since my escape from Castle Oblivion, it looked very alike the room I was trapped in, still this place gave me a form of safety. The drawing before me is just finish and thus the memory inside of it. I´ve almost used all my black colors to this one. The memory of the Dark Realm, but not only the journey inside of it. In the drawing is a boy in a black and red bodysuit. Very alike to the one Riku used when he was controlled by the darkness. Except…  
"this boy… he looks like Sora" but why? I couldn´t help but look out at my window, for this could very well still happen inside the Realm of Darkness. A small sight escaped my lips "In search for one of the missing Keyblade Wielders who secretly started out your own way to her isn´t easy…" I eyed the drawing again, that boy… and that hooded man hidden in the darkness.  
"he used Sora´s weakness against the darkness to awaken a dark being, somehow been trapped inside of him, but…" where did this dark being come from? _

_

Mickey stopped on the road inside the Realm of Darkness, staring with narrowed eyes down at the dark path, already holding his keyblade in hand, the same keyblade he gained inside this realm. Riku and Sora quickly joined him after have stepped out from the portal there lead them to this world, the newly named keyblade master; Riku turned around and closed the portal. He wasn´t much for it, but he has been forced dwell into the dark powers again in order for him and his friends getting to this place. With the portal closed, he turned back to Sora who looked around with a mix of dread and awe. Riku took a look around himself; this valley was as dark as the names itself, the only changes of the dark colors were the many cracks in the cliffs where some strange blue light resided. He turned away from the scenery and took the lead "let´s go"

"right" Sora nodded and without hesitating followed. Mickey did as well, although, like Riku was quite wary. Him and Riku has seen what danger lurks in this place and the keyblades was a huge magnet to the residents to the Realm of Darkness.  
it did not take long before they encountered a known enemy: the Heartless and all of them were strong, this was their realm after all. And no matter how many they struck down, more came to take their place.  
Mickey struck several Nova Shadows down with his acrobatic jumping and landed not far from a strange orb of darkness, he eyed it for a second, before using the orbs pushing powers to his advance and took down a small horde.  
"this way!" he called for Sora and Riku and used the orb to get to higher levels and thus closer to their goal. The two boys followed him and although they had Heartless around them, they did barely stop to fight them. The determent trio only did stop if they got surrounded. The further they got inside the realm the more Riku felt they got watched; still he knew that if he stopped, they could get in more danger than they already were in.  
they only stopped at a road with waterfalls of darkness around them, here it seems that there wasn´t as many Heartless around and allowed them getting a breather.  
Riku eyed Sora once, asking "you doing alright?"  
Sora nodded, although he did look a little strained from the pressure the darkness put on him "don´t worry about me"  
Riku simple nodded, still he couldn´t help but worry; Sora might not tell it, but this realm takes a lot of strength. He did not have Riku´s resistance to the darkness. it made the young master wonder.. he turned his eyes to Mickey and the small king smiled weakly back, although it was more in worry for their safety. The king did not look the slightest strained being here, proving his strength just by that, Riku was happy they had Mickey here.  
Riku turned back to the path, well knowing there was only one way to their main goal, someone was waiting for them, still the nagging feeling of being watched did not help "we better move" he suggested and they moved on. on this path Riku went up beside Mickey, and Sora "I don´t think we´re alone" he said and Sora gave him a slight surprised look and asked "you mean the Heartless?"

"no, something else"

Mickey nodded slowly, admitting "I feel it too" he looked seriously up to the boys "I fear it´s one of Seekers" he looked over his shoulders, slightly hoping he would catch whoever stalked them in the shadows.  
"Xehanort would know we would try and save Aqua"  
"but if he knows, then why don´t he try and stop us?" Sora asked, like Mickey, trying to see if someone was around in this one route path. Riku was the only one who didn´t, but his senses were on high alert "because it is not time" he simple said, added "we should get going, stay alert" he told mostly Sora.  
the brunette nodded.

they arrived to a huge open space area, covered in a thick dark mist. They walked through the valley, only meeting the usual horde of high level Heartless, but then, Riku stopped to a halt, for right in that second; he sensed a way to familiar scent. He gasped turned around, just as a dark figure appeared and aimed right for Sora.

"Sora, watch out!" Riku called. Sora eyed him with a gasp, turned around and blocked the attacker in the last second. The weapons slashing against each other echoed through the realm and the hooded landed not far from Sora who turned around to him, angry of the sudden attack and ready to fight him if necessarily. Mickey attacked first, but only got a mirage of the person, the hooded appeared again, this time taking the hood down and revealing it was the young vision of Xehanort.

"you sure has quick reflexes" he said with his piecing yellow eyes on Sora who kept on glaring. Young Xehanort turned to Riku "and I see you have once again taken hold on the Darkness, yet, it barely touches your heart"

"Xehanort!" Mickey called angry, pointing his keyblade from this same realm against him "are you here to stop us?"

"far from" Young Xehanort said in a somewhat amused voice "it´s about time she will join this battle, you need another Guardian of Light" his eyes suddenly darkness "just as we need to rejoin our Seekers of Darkness"

"there one here?" Sora asked rather clueless.

Young Xehanort gave him a small smirk "in some way, there is a reason why my future self allowed you go this far, for only in this realm, it would succeed." he pointed at Sora "of releasing one of the prisoners inside your Heart!" he called his keyblade and faster than the eye could see, he struck Sora.

"Sora!" Riku called as his friend fell on the ground, unconscious but seemly alright beside from that. the young keyblade master ran towards his friend, but Young Xehanort stopped him, just like he did in The World That Never Was.  
Riku got away in the last second before he got struck by the keyblade of time.

"don´t worry about him, Sora will be fine" Young Xehanort ensured, he turned around as Darkness escaped the boy and formed another body. "I can´t however say the same for you" the darkness faded away and before Sora stood another boy, the face couldn´t be seen because of a mask, but the body suit told more than anything than this stranger was on the side of Darkness.

Riku sneered, feeling nauseous of the pure darkness this boy gave of.  
the masked boy eyed Sora, before looking at Mickey, fully knowing who this was.

"you?!" the King asked in disbelief. "didn´t Ventus take care of you?!"

"ahh Ventus" the boy spoke as he went past Sora, completely ignoring him. "that idiot almost destroyed us both with that stunt he pulled off" he turned to Xehanort, but when Xehanort didn´t do anything, the masked turned back to the two wielders "luckily, this kid saved Ventus, and thus: me" a keyblade appeared in his hand, much to Riku´s shock "a keyblade?!" however he quickly got over the shock and went in battle stage, he have to fight this dark being, still... he also needed to help Sora.  
"Mickey"  
the small king looked up to him and Riku asked, well knowing he wouldn´t be able to fight if he also have to protect Sora "help Sora, I got this one"

Mickey nodded "good luck" and he ran over to the still unconscious Sora.  
The strange boy made a small huff "fine, let´s see what you´re made off" and he attacked.

Riku quickly blocked the attack and retaliated with a dark fire ball. It surprised the masked quite the bit, then he chuckled devilish "finally someone with a back bone" and the true battle began, like Riku, this boy could use darkness, but to such an extent than Riku doubted that this boy had any light inside of him. Every element he used was out of darkness and Riku was quite happy that he too controlled that power and had the resistance for it, for if he did not: then he would have been in big trouble. For someone who has just been created, this masked boy sure could pull a punch. It was mere luck that Riku defeated him and tore the mask off him in the progress.  
The boy landed hard on the ground, but did however quickly get back up again. Riku gasped of what he saw what has been behind the mask.  
the boy smirked to him, almost happy seeing the shock on Riku´s face "do you see what I´m truly is?" he asked.  
Riku did not answer; he was still shocked seeing Sora´s face on this pure being of darkness. only difference was the dark hair, slightly lighter skin and those cruel yellow eyes, showing nothing but negativity emotions in them. Was this boy… the darkness of Sora?  
in his shocked state, he didn´t see the danger before it was too late. The dark Sora have used his stunned moment to his advance and fired a powerful dark spell at him, it would have killed Riku if not for his dark shield and resistance to the darkness.  
Riku fell on his knees, gasping of the power behind this blast. He only stopped when the dark boy stood before him, smirking down to him. Still smirking gleeful; he lifted his keyblade, about to make the final blow, but got stopped.

"Vanitas"

the dark vision of Sora growled turned to Young Xehanort who finally chose to intervene "leave him" he ordered Vanitas, but the dark boy looked like he really wanted to refuse "you´re not the boss of me" Vanitas sneered and turned back to Riku.  
the young keyblade master got slowly on his feet, just as Young Xehanort told harshly Vanitas "obey or return back to the void" for the first time since the mask came off, Riku not only saw fear in those yellow eyes, his whole body almost trembled.  
Whatever this "void" is, Vanitas feared it more than anything else. Vanitas eyed him, the fear was gone once again, the ignorant attitude returned "consider yourself lucky" he growled, turned on his heels and left with Young Xehanort.  
Riku let out a long sight of relief; he had never expected fighting a darker side of Sora.  
less in the realm where those of the darkness has the greatest advantage. He turned to Mickey and Sora who has more or less regained conscious, the worst was over, and still this journey was not done.  
Sora sat up, having a face of being clueless. Riku wondered if Sora has forgotten what has happen, maybe it was for the best, for he wasn´t sure how he should explain this. Mickey exchanged a few words to Sora, before going over to Riku  
"you alright?" the small king asked.

Riku nodded "yeah… your majesty?"

"hm?"

"please don´t tell Sora about this"

Mickey blinked, but did not argue, he knew Riku´s reason "gosh" he crossed his arms with a sad look "I would never have thought that Vanitas resided inside of him, of all people"

"you know him?" Riku asked and the small king nodded although admitted "I´ve fought him a few times with my other friends, but… this is the first time I have seen his face"  
Riku nodded, still shocked of what face has been underneath that mask.

Finally arrived to the Dark Margin, finally seeing one of the keyblade masters from the past, one of Mickey´s friends. This woman was quite beautiful. A determent yet kindhearted keyblade master.  
but she wasn´t alone. Sitting on a rock, another hooded was. but this wasn´t one of the Seekers. To the trios great surprise. it turned out to be Ansem the Wise. He had survived the blast, but didn´t get away unscathed. His memories has been scrambled and could barely recognized any of them, the only one he seems to recognize was Sora.  
Mickey was quite sad at this, although he was also happy that his old friend has survived. Also very happy that even been trapped for so long in the Realm of Darkness, the woman Aqua was safe and sound, determent to help them in any means.

_

_I walked over to the window, not holding back the smile of a happy memory to this darker one. even Ansem the wise has not been very kind to me, I still wish I could help him. but sadly… I can´t restore Ansem´s memories. Sora and Riku lead Ansem back home and trusted that Ansem would get a better life, and his once again good hearted apprentices could care for him. I´m sad about his scattered memories, but happy that he at least don´t have to be alone anymore._

_I hugged another newly made drawing, showing what happening right in this very moment. It was the kyeblade wielder Aqua talking to Sora, Riku and Kairi in the tower of Yin Sid  
"Ventus has been sleeping inside of you. he´s in Castle Oblivion" I smiled, somehow feeling happy that I wasn´t alone back then.  
I need to go back to that place, maybe see if I can help them. I went past the drawings, hesitated a little at the memory of the masked boy, Vanitas. Should I tell him?_

_I smiled weakly left the room "not today"_


	2. Chapter 2: A Frozen Heart

**A/N: this happens in the chapters: Devil´s Bayou in the "True Friendship never dies" story.  
and this story transpire in the movie Frozen. not sure what the name of the world would be though**

**these chapters won't be in the correct timeline, so there will be much jumping back and forward. **

_" sometimes, those you see as enemy is those who are your ally and those you see as ally is in reality your enemy... and sometimes, you don´t know which side the person is one. even I am unsure of which side he is one, all I know... that he is trying to help, but also will be a great threat. he knows what the future holds..."_

Sora, Riku and Kairi walked through a snow filled forest, all three having warm clothing on, thanks to a nice shop owner, who also have informed them that not long ago, it was warm summer, but something have cursed this land into freezing winter.  
Sora and his two friends decided to look deeper into this "curse" while they were here.

"wait" Kairi suddenly said and stopped, "listen" her two friends did and through the mild wind, they heard wolves howling, and... human screams.

"someone´s in danger!" Sora cried and ran towards the sounds "let's go!"

"right!" Riku and Kairi nodded and ran after Sora, towards the cries and howling wolves.  
through the trees of the forest, the trio spotted a sledge, pulled by a reindeer. in the sledge, a man and a woman did they very best to keep the hungry pack of wolves away.  
one of the wolves got the man, pulled him off the sledge, but before it and the rest of the pack could harm him anymore, Riku fired a dark ball at them. shattering the pack into smaller groups.  
one of these small groups attacked the reindeer and the sledge, Sora and Kairi quickly pursuit them and with a few strikes with their keyblades, the wolves was on the run.

"you alright?" Riku asked the man, the man got on his feet, nodded with a baffled look. "yeah" he eyed the place the wolves ran off "you used to fighting wolves?"  
"you could say that" Riku replied.

the young woman in the sledge thanked Sora and Kairi from saving them, yet she could not reward them right away, her mind was on something else "I need to find Elsa"  
"whose Elsa?" Sora asked.  
"my older sister" she told and added with a humorless smile "who also happens to be the queen... and... the one who froze everything"

"huh?!" the trio gasped.

"why did she freeze everything?" Riku asked.

"It´s all my fault, I got engaged" she said and her companion added with crossed arms "the same day she met the guy"  
"it´s true love!" She shouted to him, clearing her throat and continued "long story short, I got mad, she got mad and because of that, I pushed her and she accidently turned the summer into winter"

Sora Riku and Kairi glanced to each other, like the man behind them, not sure if it was a smart move getting engaged by a guy she has just met.

"so... where is your sister now?" Kairi asked, hoping the awkward silence would go away.  
"up in the mountains" the man replied kinda casually and added "name´s Kristoff by the way"  
"oh, sorry!" the young woman exclaimed, first now realized she haven´t told her name "I´m Anna"

"I´m Sora, and this is my friends, Riku and Kairi" Sora introduce and Riku and Kairi smiles to Anna and Krisoff. "mind if we tag along? maybe we can help you reaching Elsa"  
"no thanks, I got it under control" Kristoff declined and went to the sledge. Anna in the other hand; "like with the wolves?"  
"we can help you" Riku said to the older male. with a sight, Kristoff agreed and together they went to find Anna´s sister.

inside a quite beautiful forest, having raindrops hanging down the tree wines, the group was caught in awe of this beauty the winter could produce.  
"it´s beautiful" Kairi admitted, it was pretty rare either of them saw any snow in the first place. the islands was a bit too warm for that kind of weather.  
"we don´t have anything like this back home" Sora nodded and played a little with the ice filled vines, however he stopped when someone said in an awfully cheerful mood "yeah, isn´t it? but it is so white"  
the others began looking around as the voice continued speaking "what about some color, I´m thinking some, like crimson, chartreuse, what about yellow? no not yellow. yellow in snow, brrh, no go"  
Sora looked down, closely followed by his friends, like him they too stared down to the snowman, somehow have appeared from nowhere. the said snowman turned to Anna, asking quite friendly "am I right?"  
Anna screamed in mere shock of the snowman have just _talked_ to her, and kicked its head off. the snowman´s head landed in Kristoff´s hands, but it did not look very angry about it and said cheerful as ever "hi!"  
"you´re creepy" was all Kristoff said, before he threw it over to Kairi, and of course she was just as creped as the rest and threw it back to Kristoff with "I don´t want it!"  
and Kristoff threw it to Riku, and Riku threw it back to the walking around body.

the body got hit off ground by the force and when it got up, the head was upside down. the snowman blinked "wait, what am I looking at?" he narrowed his eyes at the group, obviously confused "why are you hanging off the earth like a bat?"  
"my bad" was all Riku said, even from Sora´s view, his friend did not look sorry one bit, rather, amused.  
"wait one second" and Anna turned the head around so the snowman could see right. the said snowman gave Anna a big smile "thank you, now I´m perfect" it sighted happy and said "alright, let´s start this thing over, hi everyone; I´m Olaf, and I like warm hugs!"

"Olaf?" Anna asked, clearly looking like she knew that name, she smiled "that´s right" remembering her childhood where she and Elsa build a snowman named Olaf.  
Sora who love seeing new things, even it was as strange as this smiled introduced himself to Olaf the snowman "I´m Sora"  
Kairi went past Anna, also smiling "I´m Kairi, nice to meet you Olaf"  
Riku titled once his head to this walking, and quite talking snowman, finding this really strange and fascinating at the same time before saying "I´m Riku" adding with a small chuckle "sorry about the throw"  
Anna thoughts of a better childhood got cut by the trios introduction and she said friendly to the snowman "and I´m Anna"  
"and who is the funky looking donkey over there?" Olaf asked, nodding against the reindeer and Kristoff. Anna smiled, of what the snowman presume was the reindeer "that´s Sven"  
Olaf nodded "ah ha, and who´s the reindeer?"  
Anna hesitated a bit there, finding this both funny and a little cruel "um... Sven"  
being a snowman clearly did not make him think of others emotions, for Olaf did not see the annoyed frown on Kristoff´s face as he said cheerful "okay, makes things easier for me"

"did Elsa build you?" Riku asked the snowman.  
"yes, why?" Olaf asked with a smile.  
"do you know where she is?" Anna asked while Kristoff took one of Olaf´s arms, trying to figure out how it worked. Olaf did not seems to notice, for he turned to Anna, with the same cheerful face and same reply as with Riku "yes why?"  
"could you take us to her?"

"how does this thing work- auch!" Kristoff cried after getting hit by the tree arm and Olaf turned to him, took his arm back with "stop that Sven, I´m trying to focus here" and he turned to Kairi "yes why?"  
"I´ll tell you why" Kristoff said and told the quite cheerful snowman "we need Elsa to bring back summer"  
"ohh I don´t know why, but I always LOVED the idea of summer, of the sun, and everything´s hot!"

"you don´t know what´s summer is do you?" Sora asked, taking his hands behind his head.  
"nope!" Olaf simple said and added again with a smile on his snowy face "but I always wanted to see the summer!"

"I´m going to tell him" Kristoff said out from Olaf hearing, but before he could, Anna stopped him rather angry "don´t you dare!"  
oblivious of what summer and heat did to a snowman, Olaf leaped off "Elsa is this way, let´s bring back summer!"  
everyone followed, except from Kristoff.  
"somebody gonna tell him" was all he said, well knowing what fate awaits if they brought back summer. but with no other options, he followed the rest.

_

meanwhile in the city Arendelle. the man Anna wished to marry helped everyone in town to get warm clothing. however he stopped in doing that of the sound of a portal. he span around, with sword in hand, ready to defend himself and those around him. but before he even could make one strike, his blade got knocked out by another blade, having darkness seeping out from it. prince Hans stared warily at the cloaked figure, still he asked "have you found Queen Elsa?"  
"yes" the cloaked replied, voice compromised by magic and impossible to know who hid under the hood, only thing could be seen that this hooded was a young man.  
Prince Hans nodded and went for his horse. "alright, you go on ahead"  
the hooded nodded and teleported off.

_

as promise, Olaf brought the group to where Elsa was and to everyone´s great surprise, Elsa´s power was shown in the huge ice castle she have made in top on the mountain, it was quite the sight. they went up the crystal looking ice stairs, but Kristoff was forced to stay behind when his reindeer; Sven tried going after them, but almost ended up breaking his neck because it couldn´t stand on the icy surface.  
"you go ahead" he told them, even he looked quite disappointed not going inside this beautiful ice castle. with a nod, the trio followed Anna inside.

with a few calls, Elsa appeared, looking rather confused seeing her sister here "Anna?"

Anna was quite baffled seeing her sister like this, because she was so used to seeing Elsa so uptight and now she looked more free spirited.  
"you look different... it´s a good different " Anna told her older sister, looking around like Sora, Riku and Kairi did "and this place, it´s amazing"  
Elsa smiled of the praise "thank you... who are they?" she asked, eyeing the trio with wariness in her ice blue eyes.  
Anna turned to them "don´t worry, they are my friends" she smiled back up to Elsa "they helped me getting here"  
"you have some amazing powers" Kairi admitted, staring in awe at the castle they stood in "did you do all of this?"  
Elsa smiled, relaxing a bit more "yes" adding with a chuckle "I never knew what I was capable of" and to their surprise, she turned around saying "it´s best you leave"

"but we just got here" Anna objected, stepping up the stairs. Elsa tensed by this, and Riku quickly took notice that it wasn´t because she was angry. she was afraid.

"you belong in Arendelle. I belong here" Elsa stepped further away from Anna "alone, where I can´t hurt anyone"  
"Actually about that... you see when you left Arendelle is..."  
Elsa turned to her sister, having both fear and curiosity in her eyes "what happed?"  
"... you froze everything, Arendelle is trapped in deep snow" Anna told her sister, winching from the horror Elsa got on her face, realizing what she has done. adding rather cheerful "but that´s okay, you can just unfreeze it"

"no, I can´t... I don´t know how!"

Sora blinked looked up, for it has suddenly began snowing inside the castle. he turned to Riku and Kairi, asking a little wary "what is going on?"

Riku glanced up to Elsa who seems to getting more and more scared. "it´s Elsa"

Sora and Kairi followed his eyes, watching Anna trying to encourage her sister in doing what she thought her sister could, but Elsa knew she couldn´t.  
"I know you can do it." she stepped closer to Elsa who fought against her own powers, but the snow only got worse, it turned into a small blizzard.  
Kairi stepped towards the two siblings "Elsa, please-" she stopped when the storm suddenly got stronger. Sora quickly went over to her, doing his best to protect her. both turned to the siblings "Anna!" he called, trying to warn her  
"together we can do this!" Anna continued, not sensing the danger. Elsa cried in fear of herself and without her knowing, a flurry of ice flew out and hit Anna. it would also have hit the trio if not Riku have made a shield. the oldest of the three wielders dismissed the shield and ran over to Anna who fell onto her knees, holding over her chest.  
"Anna!" he offered his hand to her "you alright?"  
"I´m fine" Anna dismissed him and got on her feet on her own.

Elsa turned around, first now realizing what she has done. she knew she was endangering them all, "you have to leave"  
"no, I know we can figuring this out, together" Anna said, refusing to give up. Riku nodded and said to the scared queen "you can´t let the fear control you"  
"it does! for what power does any of you have to stop this winter?" Elsa asked, taking a hand up to her own chest "to stop me?"  
Riku eyes wide slightly of this, for just then, he saw himself in Elsa. when he was trapped inside the darkness, avoiding his friends, in his only way to keep them save... from him.  
"I´m not leaving without you Elsa!" Anna continued stubbornly. Elsa stepped further away from them, saying hash "yes you are" and from a burst of her magic of winter. a giant snowman appeared. it roared, making Riku summon his keyblade, but before he even could make any move. the huge snowman punched him outside.  
Sora and Kairi ran over to Anna, and together they ran outside with the big snowman in close pursuit. outside, Kairi helped Anna over to Kristoff, asking them to stand back.  
"be careful" Kristoff said and took Anna further awat. with them gone, Sora and Kairi went into battle stage. seconds later Riku joined them, looking more annoyed than hurt over being punched. they attacked the snowman and it proved to be tougher than it looked, being magically created, it did not die if its arm got cut off or if a blade skewed its chest. with Riku blasting dark fire balls at its face, keeping it focus away, it succeed Sora cutting off its leg, causing it to fall, but before it did, it grabbed Kairi and pulled her down with it.  
"Kairi!" Sora cried and leaped out after her, with Riku close behind. it succeeded them getting to her in time, and as Sora pulled Kairi to safety, the snowman fell down the mountain.  
"that was a bit too close" Kairi admitted, which her two friends wouldn´t disagree on.

"you´re not out of the woods yet"

"whose there?!" Sora asked, turning around along with his two friends. behind them stood a man in a black cloak.  
"the Organization" Riku sneered, well knowing what that meant "are you here to pick a fight, or cast this world into darkness?"  
the cloaked chuckled and answered "neither of those, for now at least" he replied with his strange voice. the trio blinked and Sora asked "then... what do you want?"  
"to give you a warning" the hooded replied and turned around, facing Anna and Kristoff.  
"what warning?" Anna asked with narrowed eyes.

the hooded pointed at hers chest "your heart has been frozen"  
"frozen?" Kairi asked. the hooded nodded and explained surprisingly friendly to Anna "that´s right. the queen froze your heart. soon, you will be nothing but ice."

Anna gasped as she took her hands to her chest, shocked and also scared of these news. still there was something that confused her. she eyed the hooded, confused "why are you telling us this?"  
behind the hood, a smile could be spotted and the hooded replied "only an act of true love will thaw the ice, if not... you will be nothing but a statue of pure ice." a portal opened behind him and the hooded backed into it as he remarked "better hurry though, her time is running out"  
"wait!" Sora tried to stop the hooded, but he was already gone, frustrated at this, Sora got no other choice but to do what the hooded wanted. he turned to Anna, asking "anyone you know who can help?"

"Hans" Anna said and told that her love was back in Arendelle. Sora nodded and as fast as they could, they went towards Arendelle.

_

up the mountain the strange hooded watched the group leave, he turned his hidden face to the sound of someone approaching "took you long enough" he said casual and turned around to face Hans.  
he nodded towards the castle "the ice queen is in there"  
Hans nodded and went towards the castle, but stooped and said hard to the hooded "no harm will come to the queen, you understand?"

"your wish is my command" the hooded said in a mocking bow. Hans narrowed his eyes at him, before they both went into the castle.  
the hooded spotted Elsa first, ignoring Hans, he leaped up the stair with his weapons in hand.  
trapped in the tower, Elsa turned fearful around to the hooded who calmly went towards her, showing he was out to harm her with the two strange swords in his hands.

"don´t come any closer!" Elsa warned, mostly because she was afraid to harm him.

the hooded chuckled, he eyed her underneath the hood "you should rather worry about yourself" and he attacked her.  
Elsa shielded herself with her hands, and her magic reacted. a shield of ice appeared, stopped the hooded´s swords. she opened her eyes and stared shocked at the blade that had almost struck her.  
with a grunt, the hooded pulled the blade out from the ice and tried to attack her again. now feeling really scared and desperate, Elsa tried to trap her attack with ice "stay away!" but the hooded was too agile and fast for her ice magic.  
finally Elsa stopped being on the defensive and went to attack, she blasted ice at the hooded, knocking the dark blade out from his hand and made him leap for his life by making spears shooting out from the floor. the hooded struck them down with his other light blue blade, but that too got blasted out from his hands and the spears of ice turned into two walls, shutting him off to get away. Elsa then made another wall, this one moving against the hooded, pushing him outside.  
the hooded backed away from the moving wall, glancing back to the edge Elsa pushed him towards. with only a foot ledge to stand on, the hooded asked rather casual "are you going to kill me?"

Elsa´s eyes wide of the words, more so when Hans finally arrived and said after he saw what she was doing "Queen Elsa, don´t be the monster they fear you are!"  
she turned around to Hans, realizing what she was doing and stopped her magic. the hooded shrugged and called his weapons in flash of light and darkness "guess not" he struck the wall that was pushing him down, making parts of it hit Elsa with enough force that it knocked her out.  
he went over to the unconscious Queen and to the enraged Prince.  
"you disobeyed my orders!"

the hooded glanced to him, not really caring "she wouldn´t have listing to you" all what mattered to him was that they got the queen. now they needed to return back to the castle as fast as possible, before Sora and his team reached Arendelle.

_

"where do all these Heartless come from?!" Sora asked pretty frustrated, at time they truly needed to hurry. Heartless just have to appear and slow them down. a single ice formed Heartless got him from behind, luckily a single strike took it down. Kairi ran over to him and used her healing magic "we should let them go on ahead" she suggested, glancing to Kristoff who was forced to carry Anna because she has gotten too weak. "it would go faster if they ride on Sven"

"but, what about the Heartless?" Sora asked, he did not like this. not one bit, Anna and Kristoff could not protect themselves against the Heartless.

"just open a path for us" Kristoff said and jumped on his reindeer with Anna.

Sora did not like this, but right now, as thing stood... it was their only choice. he nodded reluctant "just be careful"

"and ride fast" Riku added.

"we will" Kristoff nodded.  
the three wielders attached the Heartless, making a hole for Kristoff to get through.  
after a while, it succeed Sora, Riku and Kairi to get rid of the Heartless and follow the already far gone reindeer. near the town, Olaf slide past the trio "meet you guys at the castle!" he called cheerful.  
"stay out of sight Olaf!" Riku called and the snowman promised he would, and he disappeared behind some buildings.  
seconds later, Olaf said hi and someone screamed. Riku head dropped at this and said to his two friends, "you go on ahead" he jumped off the road and towards where Olaf went "I´ll go and get that silly snowman out of trouble!"  
Sora nodded to his friend and with a "let´s go" to Kairi, they ran towards the castle, only to once again being stopped by Heartless.

meanwhile inside the one of castle´s many rooms, stood the hooded and one other wearing the black cloak. this other one did not have the hood up, so the face of Ansem the Seeker of Darkness could be seen.  
"what´s so important with this queen?" the hooded asked Ansem from the wall he stood up against.  
Ansem glanced smirking to the rather younger comrade "you of all should know how fear can spread inside the heart, how it will weaken the light and strengthen the darkness"

"actually I don´t know, because my darkness is not fear" the hooded stepped away from the wall and glared at Ansem "my darkness is the hatred and despair, and you guys gave it"

Ansem eyed him with a small smirk on his lips "and you better remember it" he said, as one of the few who knew this man´s identity. he and the hooded turned to the door as Hans went inside the big common room, just after have spoken with Elsa.  
the hooded gave Ansem once look, before asking the Prince "what did she say?"  
Hans sighted with a lost glance in his blue eyes "she can´t bring back summer"

Ansem smirked "fear is controlling her heart, a few more push and fear will turn into despair and darkness will take her heart"

"what?" Hans blinked, not getting what this Seeker of Darkness was talking about. the hooded went past Ansem "ignore him, and just let me worry about it" he stopped near Hans, asking "what are you planning to do now?"

"I need to find Anna"

the hooded nodded and glanced back to Ansem. the Heartless of Xehanort gave him one look, before he left by portal. the hooded turned back to Hans and said calmly "I will go and search for-" he got interrupted by the door knocking. the door opened and inside came two servants, holding a very weak Anna.

"Anna?" Hans ran over to her, he gasped once he touched her icy cold skin "you´re so cold"

"Hans, you have to kiss me" Anna said, which caused the prince to confusions "what?"  
"now!" she begged in a orderly way. the hooded chuckled and explained "the Queen froze her heart"  
Anna nodded and turned back to Hans there asked in disbelief "I thought you said she would never hurt you"  
"I was wrong" Anna succeed to say before she almost collapsed down by the ice curse her own sister had casted over her. Hans caught her in last second and took her to the sofa. the hooded went towards the door.

"thank you"

the hooded stopped and glanced to Anna who has said those words from the heart. "thank you, without you, I would´ve..."  
"I will leave you two alone" was all he said and gently closed the doors.

Anna turned back to Hans, telling him "only an act of true love can save me"  
"a true loves kiss" Hans muttered to himself, he gently lifted her chin and went closer to kiss her, but just before their lips touched, he smirked evilly moved away with "Oh, Anna. If only there was someone out there who loved you."

"...what?" Anna asked in confusions and disbelief. "y-you said you did"

Hans stepped away from her, for the first time showing his true colors "As thirteenth in line in my own kingdom, I didn't stand a chance. I knew, I'd have to marry into the throne somewhere..."  
"What-what are you talking about?" Anna asked, shocked of this sudden change. Hans smirked told her as he picked up a pitcher of water and wanders slowly towards the fireplace. "As heir, Elsa was preferable, of course, but no one was getting anywhere with her. But you... You were so desperate for love, you were willing to marry me, just like that! I figured after we married, I'd have to stage a little accident for Elsa." and he extinguished the fire with the water. Anna tried to stop him, but she collapsed on the floor, unable to stop him.  
Hans turned back to Anna, still with that evil smirk on his face "But then she doomed herself, and you were dumb enough to go after her."

"please..."

he ignored her and continued with a chuckle "All that's left now is to... kill Elsa and bring back summer."

"you´re no match for Elsa" Anna bravely said, added "and my friends won´t allow it!"

Hans knelt down before her, smile more genuine now, he lifted her chin "you WERE no match for Elsa, as for your friends, my friends will make sure they aren´t around when I save Arendelle from destruction" and with those words, he left the room, leaving Anna to turn into ice alone in the room.

outside the room, the hooded stood once against up against a wall, waiting for Hans. he looked up as Hans stepped out and said "now, to the queen" he turned to the hooded said with the best face of acting worry to the hooded "we can´t have that her friends around, please get rid of them"  
with a single nod, the hooded left Hans who followed him with the eyes, before the evil smile returned. Hans himself went to finish off queen Elsa.

_

"that was fun! let´s do it again" Olaf giggled while walking beside a rather grumpy Riku, mostly because he was the one who have to get that stupid snowman out of trouble and somehow they both have ended up inside the castle. Riku did not reply Olaf, he would have, if not he have heard someone weakly beg for help behind a door. he stopped and tried opening the door, it was locked.  
Olaf stopped as well and went to the door, asking clueless "why are we stopping? is Hans in there? or maybe Anna? oh oh maybe both of-"

"quiet" Riku hushed him and sat his ears towards the door, he gasped of the weak voice asking weakly "...O-Olaf..?"  
it was Anna. Riku stepped back, and pointed his keyblade at the door, in a beam of light, the door unlocked, allowing him and the snowman inside.  
"Anna!" Riku called and tried to get Anna back on her feet. Olaf did the same two seconds, before he ran over to the fireplace, and turned the fire back on.  
"Olaf, g-get aw-away from there!" Anna warned weakly, for the snowman stood far too close to the warm fire.

"whoa, so this is heat" Olaf awed and sat his hands close, which made it burn as well, the snowman quickly waved his hand to make the fire go away "oh but don´t touch it"

Riku rolled his eyes and helped Anna over to the fire, both chuckling slightly of the snowman, even he was endangering himself being near the heat. with Anna close to the fire, Riku pushed Olaf away from the heat "keep your distance"

"why?"

"you´ll melt"

Olaf smiled to both of them "some people are worth melting for" as part of his face melted. quickly he took his face in a funny grimaces and remarked innocent "maybe just not in this second"

Riku shook his head with a smile and asked the snowman go to the window.  
meanwhile Riku sat down beside Anna, asked "where´s Hans?"  
Anna sighted and lowered her head "I was wrong about him... it wasn´t true love" she eyed Riku worried "he´s not the person I thought he were, he´s going to kill Elsa"  
Riku eyes wide of the news, he wanted to help Elsa, but he also wanted to make sure Anna did not die as well "I can´t leave you like this"  
"please Riku, you have to help my sister"

"what about your act of true love?" Olaf asked.

"I don´t even know what true love is..." Anna admitted sad, Olaf smiled and said that he did. he went over to her and Riku, telling them "love is... putting someone else's need before yours, like... you know, how Kristoff put you back here to Hans and left you forever."

Anna blinked and asked the snowman "Kristoff loves me?"

before Olaf could make a remark of how clueless Anna truly was about love, the window tore open and send a chilly wind inside the room, which could cause disaster for the weaken Anna.  
"don´t worry, I got it!" and the snowman ran over to the window, he closed the first, then stopped at the second "wait, hang on, I´m getting something.  
Riku went over to him and scanned the outside, outside the city, Riku saw Kristoff who had left after have dropped Anna off at the castle. he had returned and have joined Sora and Kairi who haven´t gotten very close to the castle, all thanks to another horde of Heartless.  
"it´s Kristoff, and Sora and Kairi!"  
"I guess I was wrong" Olaf turned back to Anna, looking rather disappointed "I guess Kristoff doesn't love you enough to leave you behind"

"help me up" Anna suddenly ordered, trying to get onto her feet. with a few steps, Riku and Olaf was beside her and the silver haired boy said "you need to stay at the fire and keep yourself warm"  
"I need to go to Kristoff" she argued. Riku blinked, understanding, still he found it a bit too risky. Olaf took a little longer to understand, when he finally did, he jumped eagerly up and down "your act of true love is right down there, let´s... go?" they looked up for ice was arriving on the ceiling and it was moving fast, in matter of seconds, almost the whole room was covered in ice and spears of ice sprouted out from anywhere. "

let´s go!" Riku said, took Anna´s hand and dragged her outside, for letting her stay in there would be too dangerous. "hurry!" he called, using his keyblade to rid the path for the dangerous ice spears.  
he stopped near a window and broke it with a single slash "this way!" he called and helped the weaken Anna out, they slide down to the ground, here they went on foot through the storm of snow, very difficult to see what was right before you for all the snow,

_

outside the storm has turned into a powerful blizzard, and in middle of it walked Elsa, she have escaped from prison and unknowingly escaped from Hans´s blade.  
she ran as fast she could, only stopping when a familiar voice said loud in the swirling storm "you can´t run from this!" she turned around and saw it was the hooded from before, blocking her path. she turned around, trying to get away, but from the other side, Hans appeared, struggling against the storm of snow. "please, you have to stop this!" Hans said through the storm.

also believing that he was a good guy, Elsa requested to the prince "just take care of my sister"

"your sister?" Hans asked, moving closer to her "she returned from the mountains, weak and cold. she said that you froze her heart"

"..no" Elsa gasped, having her worst nightmare coming true. but Hans wasn´t done, in his good acting of being a good guy he told her "I tried to save her, but it was too late... your sister is dead!"

"because of you" the hooded told her harshly, making Elsa fall to her knees in despair of losing her sister. the storm stopped and everything fell into a dead silence, only a very few things was moving.

Sora struck the last Heartless down and turned around to the sound of someone crying. he saw Elsa on her knees, crying with who he guessed was Hans before her. not far from Hans stood the hooded man.

not far from them, Riku, Olaf and a almost frozen to death Anna stood still, shocked of the sudden stop of the storm. Riku looked around and saw his friends, he sighted in relief "there they are"

Kristoff noticed Riku and Anna as well, and with Anna´s names on his lips, he ran towards them.  
Anna staggered towards him as well, but both her and Riku turned to the sound of a sheathing sword. again not far, they saw that the hooded has in mind of striking Elsa down, probably turning her into a Heartless. Anna gave the approaching Kristoff one look, before she made the choice. as fast as her frozen body could, she went towards her sister. Riku helped her, but Heartless appeared, forcing him to fight them and hope Anna wouldn´t be struck by them.

the hooded struck his blade against the crying queen, and just in that second, Anna stepped in between and turned into ice, knocking the blade out from the hooded´s hand.  
the hooded stared in what could be disbelief of the sacrifice. he stepped away, muttering "sacrificing herself for her family..."

hearing this, Elsa turned around, saw her sister and screamed her sisters name. she ran up to Anna´s icy body and in tears of what she has done, fell crying over the statue.  
Hans took this to attack, but was stopped by both Sora and Riku,  
"don´t you dare" Riku growled and Sora turned his enraged eyes to the hooded who stood a distance from them all.  
the hooded dismissed his blade, glanced to the crying Elsa, muttering "there is no need" he stepped further away "the point is proved"  
Sora blinked confused of what he meant, he got the answer by Anna slowly turned into normal. Anna gasped and moved after have been turned back to normal. Elsa looked up, smiling in relief "Anna?" and then the two sisters hugged each other. Elsa stepped away, asking confused "you scarified yourself for me?"

Anna smiled genuine back, replying the most simple answer she could "I love you"

Olaf gasped in delight and jumped up and down as well "an act of true love-"

"will thaw a frozen heart" the hooded ended and turned to Elsa who eyed him, thinking of the words. then she muttered to herself "love will thaw?" she smiled to her sister "love! of course!"

"you know what to do"

"do what?" Anna asked confused the hooded, she turned to her sister who smiled looked at her hands.  
Elsa smile grew bigger and with the answer to her powers, she lifted her hands and to everyone's awe, the ice, snow and cold flew gently upward, the ship they stood on lifted itself out from the thawing waters and leaving them safe and dry. everywhere, the ice flew upward, making a magical performance as the snow disappeared, returning back into the warm summer. Riku nudged his friends and made a sign for them to look up, Sora and Kairi did, and up in the sky, a giant and beautiful snowflake could be seen, and with the orders of Elsa, it disappeared like white fireworks.

"woah!" Sora gasped and looked around, the winter was gone and the summer was once again back.

Anna smiled to her sister "I knew you could do it"

"hands down, this is the best day of my life" Olaf said and to everyone's horror and sadness, he began melting "and probably my last"  
"hang on little guy" Elsa smiled, returned him to normal with her magic and gave him a cloud that offered him protection from the heat. Olaf leaped delightful of this "my own flurry!"  
Sora, Riku and Kairi chuckled at the silly snowman, however they turned to Hans who was trying to escape.  
Kristoff went towards the prince, having a face he wanted to hurt him.. hard. Anna stopped him and rather collected, she went towards the treasons prince.

"Anna?" he asked in disbelief "b-but she froze your heart"

"the only frozen heart around here is yours" she turned around, leaving him with a baffled face, which seconds later got punched by Anna. hard enough for him to drop right into the water. the three wielders winched of this, which later turned into a small laugher, for Hans surly deserved it.

_

with everything back to normal and the world safe, it was time for Sora and his friends moving on.  
"do you have to leave?" Anna asked them, feeling sad that her friends have to leave, now everything was good.  
Sora nodded "yeah, we still have an enemy to deal with"  
"will you return?" Elsa asked, adding with a smile "I hear you´re not used to winter"  
Riku smiled to the queen "we would love to come back, and you don´t have to make it winter for our sake" he added, making the others chuckle, Elsa as well.  
Elsa stopped first and said deep from her heart "thank you, for everything"  
Sora took his hands behind his head, smiling. Kairi nodded with just as big smile as Sora, Riku smile was smaller but still he felt the same as his two friends.  
the trio turned around and left "see ya!"  
"bye" Elsa and Anna waved.

outside Arendelle, Sora stopped and turned around, behind him stood the hooded. Sora called his  
keyblade, but did not go in battle stage, for he did not know how he should threat this person anymore. "who are you?" he asked.

"you´re not the one who deserves that answer" the hooded replied friendly yet hard, telling that no matter what Sora does, he won´t answer that question.

Sora turned fully around to him, asking instead "why are you here then? you´re not like the others we have encountered"

the hooded sighted and said softly "Xehanort conjured me here. I shouldn´t actually exist, that is the only reason"

"... are you a Nobody?"

the hooded did not answer that question, instead he said "there is a book, a book that has written of what is fated to transpired and what already has happen." he sat his hand on his chest "I am proof of that book, I am here, even though I shouldn´t be, not yet at least. my fate has yet not been decided"

"huh? what do you mean?"

"however the book, known as the Book of Prophecies has said that you; Sora will be the wielder of a complete form of the Keyblade that can return hearts"

Sora blinked, confused of the hooded words, still the name of that keyblade sounded familiar "why does that sound so familiar?"

"you have seen it, you saw an uncompleted form of it once, and you struck yourself with it"

"...that is the Key of Hearts?!" Sora gasped. the hooded nodded and said "the book said you will complete it, but not when. I want you gather the seven Princesses and do it now"

"why are you saying this?" Sora asked confused why this Seeker of Darkness was helping him "why are you helping?"

again the hooded did not answer, a portal opened behind him and before he disappeared inside of it he said "Return to Radiant Garden, there is someone who can help you, but hurry, the time is running out" and he was gone, leaving Sora alone.

"I can´t say I trust this guy, but..." Sora looked up to the could free sky "something tells me he means well" 


	3. Chapter 3: Two sides of one Heart 1

**A/N: this story takes place just after the chapter: Seeking answers. in my other story "True friendship never dies"**

_the drawing of the black haired boy standing before Sora on held the memory of what transpired in the Realm of Darkness, but that memory did not explain why or how this dark hearted boy was within Sora. now I know...  
I took a new drawing, one I have made not long ago, this drawing isn´t Sora´s, but the boy who has his face. that boy.  
he is the half of Ventus, his Darkness. they fought once, and it almost killed Ventus when he made the last strike against his dark half, but Vanitas is part of him and so long Ventus lives; Vanitas will live as well._

_for whatever they like it or not, those two are still connected, once the same person._

_I just fear than they never will realize it before it is too late.  
for the drawing before me told a fight against a creature of old times... a Fire Bird that will destroy them both, unless they realize their connection to the other, and reach after the power Ventus inherited from the one who passed the keyblade to him._

Ventus walked through a deep layer of snow, inside a great forest. the trees around all looked dead, missing their leaves and only the white snow gave this place a small beauty. the blond kept on walking, finding it slightly strange that he haven´t seen a single Heartless or those strange white things. this world was his first since his awaking, unless counting Radiant Garden as one. it has only been a few days since he left Radiant Garden in search for his friend Terra.  
he stopped near a small tree watching it while muttering sad "no sign of Terra... or anyone" he remarked, glancing at the snow filled forest.  
he left the tree, thinking of just leaving and search in other worlds.  
but those thoughts escaped his mind seconds later. for around him, the snow began melting and life blooming once again. Ventus blinked at this sudden transformation from winter to spring. he looked around for the cause and saw it up in one of the huge trees.

up in the tree, a green young woman-like creature touched the tree and leaves grew back on to the branches. she glided down to the grown where grass has grown up, rubbed her hands near the ground and when she removed them, a small pretty flower has appeared.

"wow~!" Ventus gasped at the sight.

the Sprite turned to him, quite startled at having an audience. she quickly got over the surprise and turned back to the small flower, frowning that it wasn´t good enough. she took her hands back to the ground, rubbed harder and higher and when she stopped. Ventus stood with open jaw at the huge and very beautiful flower she have made.  
she smiled sweetly to him, happy of his stunned face of her art. still smiling she glided over to the tree he stood at and showed him the beauty of spring. the small dead-like tree exploded in pinkish colors by the blossoms she made and to finish it off, she flew up in the air and threw a rain of blossoms.

Ventus starred both stunned and impressed at the work this playfully Sprite. he stood and watched the pink blossoms fall around him like a gentle rain, meanwhile the Sprite gave the forest new life with her powers.  
"that is amazing!" he cheered impressed to the Sprite and ran over to her, saying with a huge smile "you´re amazing"

the Sprite looked slightly away, blushing of the praise, still she wanted to show her new friend more of what she could do and with signs with her hands to follow. she lead Ventus deeper into the forest.

the boy followed and had a good time around this spring bringing creature, for the moment, his worry and fear was gone, replaced by the wonder the Sprite showed him.  
however, it all changed as they approached the mountain, here the Sprite´s powers somehow didn´t work and Ventus got back to reality when a familiar enemy appeared near a huge mountain.  
"Unversed!" he sneered, there was no mistaking those blue monsters with the red eyes. he attacked the Unversed and turned to the Sprite who looked at where the Unversed have been with both fear and curiosity.  
"you better keep close" he told her and took the lead. the Sprite nodded and followed him up at the mountain.  
at the top, or rather the edge of the mountain, both Ventus and the Sprite looked down at the giant hole in the mountain's top. down in the hole, more Unversed walked around, but Ventus couldn´t see the reason why their master would send them down there.  
"what is down there?" Ventus muttered, more to himself that to his spring giving companion. however... it wasn´t the Sprite who gave an answer.

"what about taking a look?"

Ventus´s head span around, but before he could defend himself, the other teen behind him, kicked him over the edge and Ventus fell down into the hole. the blond landed hard on the mountain hole´s floor, so hard that the world span around for the boy.  
still he heard someone land on the ground not far from him, and when he could, Ventus turned his eyes to the master of the Unversed, a being that came from the darkness in his own heart: Vanitas.

"been a while Ventus" the black haired boy said casual, he had his mask on this time, hiding his face like the many other times in the past.

Ventus got on his feet, confused over his darker half was still around "but, how? I destroyed you"

"yes, you destroyed me" Vanitas admitted spiteful, hating it that his weaker half actually have defeated him, there was another reason why he hated the thought of being defeated, but he refused to even think about it, thinking about _those thoughts_ would be a sign of weakness.  
"and yet, here I am" he said, this time more composed.

"how?"

"I don´t know"

Ventus blinked, taken aback that Vanitas actually had no idea either why he still was around. he always spoke down to him, irritating him by knowing more of what is going on.

"and I don´t care" Vanitas added, he glanced to the huge stone in the middle of the hole "I was giving the order to retrieve something from that stone" he said, completely ignoring the Sprite moving curious towards the stone. he turned to Ventus, feeling a strong hatred against the blond, he wanted _soo badly_ to destroy him and being trapped in the void for so long, he felt like a rookie in controlling his destructive impulses.  
he called his keyblade, and said as he readied his body to strike "but I would rather get rid of the nuisance before me" and he attacked.

Ventus barely got time to block the attack, he gasped of the power behind that strike and realized that his body wasn´t as strong as when he last fought Vanitas.  
that was really bad news for him. still he have to fight, and even with the strength disadvantage, he continued on fighting Vanitas. for if he didn´t, his darker half will surly finish him off.  
their fight quickly escalated, and at one time Ventus thought he and Vanitas did not only fight physical, but also inside the heart like last time, however it was pretty short, for seconds after that wondering. Ventus found himself badly wounded on the ground, defeated by Vanitas.

Vanitas snorted unimpressed "that´s all?" he asked and pointed the keyblade at him "I didn´t even break a sweat. humph! you have gotten weak" he remarked annoyed to the other boy. it wasn´t enough to create the x-blade, but this fight had been enough to something else, Vanitas glanced to the small darkness that escaped his body and light seeping out from the fallen Ventus, the sign of this have been a battle against a Seeker of Darkness and a Protector of Light- Xehanort got what he wanted, but Vanitas didn´t.  
he eyed the boy and somehow knew that forcing Ventus into creating the X-blade will not succeed. the only way now was... get rid of his weaker half.  
"goodbye Ventus" he muttered, lifted the keyblade to make the final strike. a strike Ventus could not defend himself against, he was simple too weak.

but right the last moment, before Vanitas could make the dead blow, the Sprite had accidently awaken something inside the stone, something very old, and very, VERY angry.  
one, three, six, turned into several beams of darkness shot out from the stone, one of them almost hit Vanitas, forcing him to back off from Ventus who also stared shocked at the destructive stone.  
the dark beams stopped, and a second it seemed the danger was over. then, the stone exploded and out from its prisoner; a huge bird appeared. the bird was brown with lighter markings over its body, the wings, tail and the feathers on its head had two red colors. one, blood-red, the other darker. the bird´s pale blue eyes turned with a deadly glare towards the one who have awaken it: the Sprite. it flapped with its wings and fire fell out from them, making it rain with fire. the Sprite took the run for it as it realized it could not stand against the fire.  
the fire bird struck after her a single time with its deadly talons, but she got away. the bird landed on the volcano's top and screeched out to the land in its fury, flapping its wings and more fire came out, setting everything close ablaze.  
one of these fire got Vanitas and in his anger of being attacked and interrupted in getting rid of Ventus: he attacked the fire bird.

he struck it over the head, making the bird topple a little by the hit, but unfortunately for him, it quickly regained its balance and turned furies to its attacker.  
Vanitas glared back at it, not at all faced by fear. that until the fire bird surrounded itself by fire, burned the boy who stood too close to dodge the attack. he barely got time to recover from that attack, for when he looked up, he looked right into the bird´s glaring eyes, right before it grabbed him with its talons, flew a little with him, before it slammed him with its whole weight behind into the volcano's side.  
the bird did let go of him and it took flight, letting it rain with fire over this world.

Ventus got on his feet and as fast as his wounds would allow him, he ran up from the hole and saw the devastation this creature caused. the whole forest was on fire!  
"no!" he cried to the fire bird, but all that did was it tried to give him the same trip as it had giving Vanitas.  
fortunately for Ventus, his speed saved him from the bird´s talons. the bird screeched angry over the miss and let it frustration go over the Sprite who tried sought safety in the highest of trees. the bird dived into the fire and appeared again before the Sprite, trying to set her on fire as well.  
and all Ventus could do was watch, he couldn´t defeat this creature, and he couldn´t run down to help the Sprite because of the fire.  
Ventus noticed movement further down the mountain and saw it was Vanitas. he really took a beating from that bird, barely able to stand, still he forced himself to stand.

"does that thing knows who it is dealing with?" Vanitas asked and tore off his helmet, it saved his head from the attack, but the metal got bent and was rather painful. the black haired boy glared at the bird "I won´t allow such a stupid beast to defeat me!" and he summoned an small army of Unversed, all made from his anger. he ordered them to attack and those Unversed who could, flew towards the fire bird that tried to catch the poor Sprite. the bird at first didn´t seems to notice the attacking Unversed, which only pissed Vanitas off more and he called more and bigger Unversed. those Unversed was the Trinity Armor and the Metamorphosis, two of the strongest of the known Unversed Vanitas ever has created. that got the fire bird´s attention when those two attacked.  
the bird screeched angry and attacked the Trinity armor, grabbing its arms with its talons, burning it with its fire. the Trinity Armor retaliated by firing lasers at the bird, but the fire bird didn´t even seems to notice it!  
the Metamorphosis joined the fight, grabbing the bird around the head and trying to electrocuted it with thunder attacks. that the fire bird notice and it seemed to it did hurt, which was good. that until the fire bird returned the attacks, by setting itself and the two huge Unversed on fire.  
the Metamorphosis let go, trying to get away from the fire, allowing the bird to get a better hold on the Trinity Armor there still was caught in its talons. the fire bird flew up into the air, and plummet to the ground, still holding the trinity armor, then just before hitting the blazing surface and ground underneath, the bird span around and threw the Unversed with such strength that the Unversed broke apart inside the fire and the inferno around finished it off.

Vanitas sneered of the pain he felt from the Unversed dying from the hit and the fire, still he ignored the pain and continued on sending more Unversed out, many of them got burned as well, causing him pain, but he continued on calling more, for he refused to let this creature win.  
with the Trinity armor gone, the fire bird turned to the Metamorphosis, flew over the Unversed, grabbed its head with its talons and began peaking the Unversed with such strength that if it has been a real, living animal, flesh and bones would have been torn from the body. and as if that wasn´t enough, the bird finished it off by setting it on fire with its wings. with those two gone, the fire bird turned to the army of Unversed on the ground, those who had some resistance to the fire and was trying to get it with mere numbers. the Unversed screeched and dove down to the army, finishing them off with a flaming stroke with its wings. those who survived got torn to pieces by the talons.

Ventus couldn´t believe this, even with two of the strongest and even with an army of Unversed over it, this bird kept on fighting and winning. sure, the Unversed did get some attacks in, but that fire bird kept on fighting and took more Unversed down than they could harm it.

"Arggh!"

Ventus eyes snapped down to Vanitas, the black haired boy have collapsed on the ground, face twisted in pain, but why? Ventus did not know. was his wounds worse than thought? no, he was hurt, but not enough to make him collapse.

Vanitas knew he was reaching his limits, he usually didn´t send out so many Unversed at the same time, back when he let his monsters out to other worlds he did send many, but they did not all die at the same freaking time!  
he felt every single death of his Unversed, he felt it like he got burned alive and torn to pieces by that bird. he wanted to continuing sending his Unversed at it, but... he couldn´t. and he hated himself for it.

up on the mountain, Ventus watched Vanitas squirm in pain, then he turned to the fire bird tearing the Unversed apart, and back to Vanitas who looked like it was him who got... hang on.  
"you feel their pain?"

"they are what I feel" Vanitas repeated something he told Ventus the last time they faced each other, adding annoyed "idiot"

"if you feel their pain, why do you keep on sending them out? that is stupid!"

Vanitas flung around to the blond, enraged that Ventus had the nerves to call him stupid "because I am NOT WEAK! you are the weaker one Ventus!" he turned back to the bird who killed the last Unversed and turned its eyes to the two boys "you have always been the weak one. if it weren´t for your weakness, I would never have been here"

Ventus stared in disbelief at his darker half, barely comprehending what he was saying. was he suggesting that Vanitas would never be here if he have giving into the darkness and fought those Heartless those many years ago? even now, the thought of giving in, it frightens him.  
not to mention that Master Eraqus have taught him that darkness has no place in the worlds, so there was no way he would give in.  
"I could never do such a thing"

"because you´re weak" Vanitas repeated with a snort.

"I am NOT weak" Ventus gave back, not as spiteful as he wanted though, still deep inside his heart, he knew that what Vanitas said was the truth.  
"I don´t need the darkness! and I don´t need you!"

for a second, it looked like Vanitas flinched by those last words, but it was gone before anyone could notice. the black haired boy glared back to the enraged boy "and I don´t need you"

Ventus opened his mouth to snap back, but he never got the chance, for the fire bird had decided to attack them head on. it got Vanitas from behind and threw him right into Ventus, both fell down to the dormant volcano.  
almost knocked out cold by that attack, both boys struggled to get back on their feet, they both knew they have to for this bird wouldn´t give them any mercy.  
Vanitas was the first who got up, he glared at the bird there taunting landed on the edge of the volcano, waiting for them. in a furies roar, he attacked the creature.  
Ventus got on his feet at the black haired boy did and saw the bird almost tear him in half with its talons.

Ventus didn´t stand a chance, Vanitas didn´t stand a chance against this creature. there was only one way, and Ventus did not like this _one bit_  
"we have to work together!"

Vanitas jumped away from the striking talons, made enough distance to turn in disbelief around to the blond of such a stupid suggestion. "no way I´m going to help you" he snapped and attacked the bird again "then I would rather die!"  
he almost did by the bird´s beak, but just the last second, Ventus slammed it over the face, making it flinch and stop the attack. the blond landed beside him, looking angry as well over this "trust me, I would say the same"  
that made Vanitas blink in surprise, for right in that moment, he saw himself in the blond. the moment was short, for the fire bird sat itself on fire, forcing both boys to jump away.  
"but I can´t die here, I still need to save Terra!" Ventus continued, he turned his determent eyes to Vanitas "and if I know you right, you would rather be the one to strike me down than this bird"

he got that right. still Vanitas did not like this, not one bit. but they have to, if they both wanted to fulfill their goal.  
"ugh, fine!" Vanitas growled and turned to the bird, adding sneering "don´t slow me down"

Ventus didn´t comment on that one and turned to the bird. both attacked the fire bird with a roar, for the first and what they both wanted to be the last, they worked together to defeat the fire bird.  
their teamwork wasn´t perfect, but it did turn the table and from a successful strike from Ventus, the bird fell to the ground, lying deadly still.  
both boys lowered their weapons, exhausted by the battle, still it wasn´t over. Ventus turned to Vanitas, readying himself, for the strange alliance was over.

Vanitas did the same, but before he went in battle stage, he admitted with a small smirk "you may be weak, but at least you´re not a scaredycat anymore"

Ventus blinked, now his turn to be taken aback by his other "um, thanks?" and before any words or movement could be made, the bird got on its feet. Ventus starred in disbelief at the creature "how much does it take?!"

"ugh, not again" Vanitas groaned, still he went in battle stage against the creature. "this time, no mercy Ventus"

Ventus turned to Vanitas, not sure how to react on that comment, so without a word, he went in battle stage as well. they charged at the bird, both leaping into the air, somehow, acting as one.  
Vanitas used his full strength on that thing and Ventus did the same, no longer caring that the one fighting beside him was his worst enemy, right now, there was only them and the fire bird, nothing else matters.  
the fire bird was at its limits and sat itself on fire, not only partly as the other times, no this time, it _became_ the fire, but the boys refused to let that stop them and right there, in the heat of the battle, they was in completely sync with one another.

the fire bird screeched as something just as big tackled it down from the volcano and into the fire. a pair of jaws smacked around the birds neck, taking away its last strength.  
the bird couldn´t handle the force and it dissolved in light and darkness, leaving behind a necklace with a red stone, held by metal behind. the fire bird´s attacker stood hidden inside the fire, only the figure of a four legged creature with wings could be seen. this creature; wherever it came from was unknown, only its kind could be said as it turned its blue eyes towards the volcano

_protect and obey_

and it was engulfed by the fire, leaving nothing behind. it was like it has never been there...

Ventus eyes wide of what he suddenly felt, he felt a tremendous form of loneliness, along with the knowledge that tears won´t give any pity. he felt hatred, but against what he did not know, he felt pain, as if he have been burned and pieced several times and haven´t died yet. there was so much, so much pain that he wanted to scream, he didn´t get it, where did these horrible emotions come from? he have never felt so much pain, he wanted it to stop, he begged it to stop.

"make it stop!" Ventus cried, opening his eyes, gasping of what he have just felt. then he notice that the pain wasn't gone, it was still there!  
weaker, but still there.  
he sat up, trying desperately to figure out a way to make the pain stop. he did forget about the pain for a moment when he notice that he was lying in the burned down forest, everything was turned into ash.  
"oh no.." he got on his feet, walking around in the before so beautiful place, now turned into a nightmare. the place did suit the pain he felt. he stopped when he noticed a figure near the small three the Sprite gave pink blossoms. he went to the tree and saw that the figure was Vanitas, beside him sat a small and very sad looking Sprite. she looked in despair up to him, but Ventus couldn´t cheer her up, he felt too horrible to cheer others up. he eyed his darker half, Vanitas was still out cold, and looking at his face, he looked like he was having a nightmare.  
Ventus would have shaken someone awake if they had a nightmare, but he honestly didn´t fell much sympathy for Vanitas. not after what he has done to him and his friends.  
instead he turned to the Sprite who cried tears of the destructive the fire bird has done, Ventus felt for her, everything was gone.

"it looks like a graveyard"

Ventus glanced to Vanitas, he was awaken and was so weak he could barely sit up. the black haired boy watched the area with a monotone face. he glanced back to the crying Sprite, remarking "tears won´t solve anything"

"would you give her a break" Ventus snapped at him, making Vanitas looked with a surprised look at him "haven´t she been through enough?"

"humph" Vanitas snorted and turned his head away. Ventus blinked noticed something in what he felt seconds ago to the other boy´s words.  
his eyes wide in realization "no way"

Vanitas glanced to the shocked Ventus, but he didn´t really give a darn why he was so shocked. so he turned his attention to the crying Sprite, he wanted to sneer that she should stop crying, for what would they help anyway? tears has never helped him.  
then, to his great shock and surprise, green grew out from where her tears have felt. Ventus and the Sprite noticed it as well. the Spite first looked surprised, then with a smile she took to the sky. spreading out a dark carpet over the forest she made rain fell from the sky and everywhere the rain touched, life began returning.

Ventus began smiling at this, the smile turned into laugher as the Sprite made the forest return in full strength, stronger than before.  
Vanitas watched her do it as well, but he did not understand, she cried, and that gave her the strength to bring the forest back?  
_'how can tears make you stronger?'_ he thought

"sometimes you have to cry to get back on your feet"

Vanitas looked up to him, not sure how to react on that it seemed the blond had just read his mind.

Ventus glanced to him and said with eyes back to the returning forest "and sometimes, you have to take the bad in to be stronger"  
that made Vanitas raise a brow. which made Ventus think it was kinda funny, for the last time he saw his darker half´s face, it was with that evil smile on his face. he sat his hand on his aching heart, for the first time realizing what it meant to be forced away from the light, being on the edge and kept on pushing out by your master, leaving nothing but a rotten core behind.  
he went over to his darker half, reaching his hand out to him.  
Vanitas surprise was priceless, however it was quickly replaced by a glare "I don´t need your help, get lost" he snapped and turned away, or as much as his wounded body would allow.  
Ventus ignored him, took his arm and helped him back on his feet, even granted him a shoulder. something Vanitas did NOT like.

"are you deaf and stupid?! I told you-!"

"and I don´t care" Ventus said back, collected, strangely enough, because, for the first time, he understood Vanitas and why he was acting the way he did.

Vanitas stared shocked at him "you don´t care?"

"yup" Ventus smiled and added "so let´s get you fixed up"

Vanitas gave him a glare, he did not like taking pity on "I don´t need pity, least from you"

"would you rather have my help or some of your "friends" finding you?"

Vanitas felt a small fear of the other members seeing him in this pathetic state, but he also felt humiliated over being helped by his enemy. Vanitas growled, not liking his options.  
the blond took that response as a no and took him to a place he hoped they both could be fixed up.  
he wasn´t sure he can, but Ventus wanted to try and save Vanitas, and even if the dark one hated it, Ventus couldn´t help but feel pity, now finally realizing how terrible he feels every single day.

_"it require strength to admit that even the worst of the worst is not as bad as you think" I smile at the drawing of brave Ventus helping Vanitas against the Mysterious Tower. still, my eyes goes to the fire bird. they defeated it, but only by their united and hidden strength, that strength saved them, but now weak and lost in some other world. and I fear what would happen if someone got their hands on that Keeper that refuses to give up_


	4. Chapter 4: Two sides of one Heart 2

**A/N: this story happens between "a big, crazy rescue" to the beginning of "Replica returns" in the fanfic True Friendship never dies also this story´s ending gives notes to another Memory story, and some old character I long have wanted to appear, but that is a story to another time**

_even one said to be fully darkness can show some light, just with enough patience and kindness._

ever since he came into the world, the agonizing pain had always been there, the pain of the separation. He was half of Ventus, the dark half and thus, most of his emotions were dark. When he first looked down to the unconscious blond, he felt sad, not sure why though, was it because he no longer was part of the boy? But that sadness soon changed to a great dislike, for he also saw Ventus as his weakness. He wanted to become strong and that was what Xehanort used to control him. That, and his eternal suffering of uncontrollable emotions. His emotions created the Unversed and he hated them, so he destroyed them. But he quickly realized that killing those monsters only caused him even more pain, he was- is trapped in an evil circle of hurt.  
Xehanort told him that the only way to escape from the pain was to fight Ventus and create the X-blade. It became his goal, it became his life. Xehanort made sure of that, trained him merciless, never giving him any pity, never making it easy to deal with the pain inside his chest or the great loneliness he felt when he felt the warmness Ventus´s friends gave him. Only leaving him colder than ever when the so comforting feeling disappeared, he wanted to cry, but he never did, for tears never helped him. All he could do was to train and trap his hurt inside, becoming the monster Xehanort wanted him to be.

his goal, his dream was shattered the moment the X-blade slid out of his grasp, he disappeared along with Ventus, but unlike the blond who sought safety inside someone else. He was forced to stay in the void, a place where no one could hear you scream.  
he was more than happy to get out, and his master putted him to work the instant he was free. He was, once again suffering under his master´s training, but he did not care of the pain anymore. All he wanted was to tear something apart, he got the chance when he met his other half once again. But he was rudely interrupted by something big, powerful and very angry. That firebird forced him into doing something he never thought would happen: working together with Ventus. At first he hated it, then to his own huge surprise, he began enjoying it.  
it had been then when it happen, he felt the connection to the blond, for just a moment, stronger than ever before. He felt Ventus light as if it has been his own. He wanted that light more than anything, and he almost, almost cried when it was gone, leaving nothing behind than his cruel companion of hurt.

_

Vanitas lied on a bed inside one of the Mysterious Tower´s rooms, doing nothing than staring at the ceiling and thinking. His body has taken such a beating that he have almost gone limb, every move made it hurt, not to mention moving would open the wounds the firebird gave him.  
whatever happened under that fight, something changed, Ventus somehow knew of his suffering and had (to his great annoyance) taken pity on him and brought him to another old keyblade Master named Yin Sid. He barely remember getting inside the tower, he could only remember distance voices, two he did not recognize, but the third, he could. It has been Ventus´s and even though he didn't understand the words, he somehow knew that the boy was worried about him.  
Vanitas snorted loudly, finding it both strange and ridicules that the blond have taken pity on him. Knowing how he felt shouldn´t change from the fact of what he did to the blond and his friends.  
Vanitas turned around from the sound of a door being opened, however he turned his face back to the wall when seeing who it was. "it´s you" he almost sneered.

"how are you feeling?" Ventus asked kind, doing his best to ignore the rudeness in the raven haired´s reply: "worse now you´re here"  
Ventus sighted, still he went further into the room and offered a box with some food he bought in the town "I brought you something to eat, in case you´re hungry"

"I´m not, go away" Vanitas snapped, trying his best ignoring the gnawing hunger in his stomach. his pride refused him to accept food from (in his mind) his worst enemy.  
the box with food got placed on a nearby table "I´ll leave it here when you get hungry" Ventus said softly and with that, he left the room.  
Vanitas turned to the closing door, having a mix of anger and sadness of this action. in one hand, he still hated the blond and would have nothing to do with him. in the other hand he wanted Ventus, or just someone around, for deep inside, he craved for friends. he knew how it felt like having one, but sadly his years of training with Master Xehanort had turned his loneliness against him. made him trust no one but himself and thus making the raven haired only think of becoming stronger in order to make the X-blade.  
_'I should´ve known better it wouldn´t work'_ he thought darkly, still remembering the battle where Ventus defeated him and tore his only hope to salvation out of his grip. was this one of the reasons why he hated Ventus?  
he wasn´t sure anymore, it seemed more like he hated everything, even himself.  
a deep growl snapped him out of his dark thoughts, his stomach begged for food and even though Vanitas greatly disliked doing it, his hunger was greater than his pride and he went over to the box with food and silently began eating.

Ventus returned again with more food, he was happy that Vanitas have eaten the last one and offered him the next one. again Vanitas turned him down, so the blond left the food on the table. and left the room as the dark haired wanted, once again putting Vanitas in a dilemma of he wanted Ventus to stay or not.  
the ritual continued a few days, Ventus came with food, offered it to the raven haired who would turn it down and tell him to leave. Ventus would then leave the food and leave the room himself, never question him why he kept turning him down. for Ventus already knew, it was weak, but he felt Vanitas pride and hurt gets the better of him and always left in more pain when he left the room.  
Ventus did honestly not like this technique of leaving when he knew the raven haired deep inside wanted him to stay.  
"why can´t I speak with him?" he asked Yin Sid. "he wants me to stay"

he had told the retired Keyblade master of what happen when he and Vanitas fought together. understanding why Ventus wanted to help, but the boy did not understand how delicate it was with mending his darker half together again.  
Yin Sid mused over these thoughts before replying the young boy "your heart is at the place, but it would be very unwise to rush things with Vanitas"

"why?"

"his heart has been shunned away from light for a very long time" Yin Sid said with closed eyes "he knows how happiness feels through you, but has never been granted the gift himself. because of this, Vanitas has become very vigilant against any form of kindness and will lash out if you haste things" he opened his eyes again, looking Ventus down with his sharp eyes "if you truly wishes to help Vanitas. give him the time he needs, when he is ready to talk. he will let you know"

Ventus haven´t thought of it this way, good thing he brought them here. he bowed down in sign of respect "Understood"

_

_the X-blade slid out of his hands, desperate he tried getting the only thing that had the promise of making the pain stop, but the X-blade slipped further and further away as his own strength faded away. with his strength gone, he fell down and the light took him. for the world it would seem he returned back to Ventus, but the truth was that because neither of them accepted the other in any way they was pushed away from one another. Ventus was forced to leave his own body and Vanitas was forced into a place where he couldn´t hurt anyone._

_he was trapped in the darkness, but this place wasn't the Realm of Darkness, even that place was livelier and more colorful that this... this void.  
everything was pitch black, there was nothing but blackness, no sound, no movements, nothing.  
he wanted to get out, but his body was swallowed by the blackness. he didn´t know he still had his body or this was only his mind that was left. even if he still had his body and could move, he did not know how far he could move. all he knew he could was scream, first he screamed in anger, kept making promised that when he got out, Ventus, his friends would suffer. he even wanted to make Xehanort suffer for lying to him about the X-blade. slowly he stopped screaming in anger and hatred, slowly, the blackness began creeping into his mind, driving him to cry for help for the darkness was slowly taking away his sanity. he cried for someone, he didn´t care who to come and help, he did not care who, anyone would be good.  
to his surprise and relief, someone came. he could not see them, but he felt an embrace and words that he wouldn´t be alone.  
the stranger spoke softly to him, reminded him that even if this seemed like the end, it was only the beginning to a better life. he did not believe in the stranger, yet still he listened to the voice, listened to its stories of always have been watching over him, watching Ventus. he did not like that the voice mentioned Ventus, he did not want Ventus to share this with him. he wanted this to be his and his alone.  
"who are you?" he once asked the stranger "how did you know I was here?"_

_I have always been here._

_he did not understand it, what did the stranger mean? he tried questing the voice more, but whoever the voice belonged to wasn´t the brightest. it kept saying that it has always been with him and Ventus, never answering the questing of what it meant, and he got the thoughts that the stranger didn´t know why or how it was here.  
also the stranger kept telling him that this hell hole was only the beginning to something better, it was beginning to be annoying, and yet, he slowly began believing it. it was hard not to when the stranger said it as a promise.  
his belief was however shaken in the voice when he finally got out. it had been a younger version of Xehanort who let him out and had every attention of letting him know that he easily could throw him back to the void if he disobeyed._

_his life did not get better. the pain was still there, Xehanort was still as horrible as always and his hated against Ventus hasn´t faded away as well._

_that promise was a lie, just like Xehanort's._

"..are you alright?"

Vanitas eyes snapped open and he stared at Ventus who gave him a very odd look. the raven haired growled, why was Ventus here? it was in middle of the night.  
he turned away from the boy, asking icy "why are you here?"

"you were crying"

it was first then he realized that his face was all wet, he cursed of it, he hated showing any form of vulnerability. he dried the tears away, snapping "I´m not crying"

Ventus wanted to tell him it was alright, wanted to remind him that he wasn´t alone, but the words of Yin Sid made him keep his mouth shut. he did not want to hurt Vanitas even more, especially not with something that should be helping him. he nodded slowly, muttering softly "if you say so..." he rose and went towards the door "guess I´ll leave you-"

"wait"

he stopped, both startled and excited of what would happen next. maybe Vanitas would just tell him not to come back, it seemed to be the best possibility of how he has been acting all this time. he turned around to the raven haired, asking kind "something wrong?"

Vanitas looked away, uncertain why he asked the blond to stop. he did not want Ventus to see him like this, but... Ventus did not seems to care. he wanted someone around, but still he refused to show he was weak. what should he do? "I wasn´t crying" he repeated.

Ventus did not answer, already felling disappointed.

"... stay" Vanitas muttered under his breath, feeling like the request was poisoned. this was against anything his master taught him, then agaim; why should he care about what Xehanort thought?

"what?" Ventus asked, not sure he heard right. he turned further around to Vanitas "what did you say?"

feeling like fallen from being mighty to being pathetic Vanitas snapped angry "I said stay, idiot" remarking angry "but not because we´re friends or anything. in fact, I still hate you"

"...then why do you want me to stay?" Ventus asked confused, that doesn't make any sense.

"fine, then leave. see if I care" and Vanitas turned his back to the blond, doing his best to look angry, while in fact he was sad. he waited for the sound of the door, but it never came. instead, the sound of a chair being pulled and when he turned around. Ventus sat on the said chair and smiled weakly to him.  
Vanitas did not show he was grateful for this, but Ventus somehow knew for the face the dark haired gave him was not in a scowl or glare. this time it was natural. Vanitas turned his back to Ventus again, going back to sleep with a small smile on his lips.

Ventus stayed the whole night inside Vanitas´s room and even thought he didn´t barely get any sleep and got an incredible sour back,but it was worth it for Vanitas´s attitude changed a bit to the better. it wasn´t much, but Vanitas was beginning to take the food and even eat with him around. and one day, he began speaking with Ventus. much to the boy´s surprise and happiness.  
at first it was just few remarks, like how stupid he found this situation of him being his worst enemy to suddenly being taken pity on, then to criticize what he did not like about the food he got and how stupid Ventus looked from when he defeated him in the past.  
Ventus did at first play very natural, but as time passed and he felt more comfortable around the dark haired, he too began saying his opinion on things.  
one of his favorite discussions was about the Unversed´s appearance and what emotions they embodied.  
much to Vanitas´s dismay.

"what about the one that looks like a bunny?"

"sorrow, and it does NOT looks like a bunny!"

"I think it does, did it get that form because you felt sorrow of you couldn´t get a bunny?"

"no! its form has nothing to do with the emotions it embody, idiot."

"but you made the form right, you said that yourself when you explained that when I asked about the Scrapper"

"ugh.. alright I made that form, but it is not a bunny! get it into your thick skull already?"

"then what does it looks like then?"

"I don´t know! would you leave me alone with it already?!"

"what about Dark Lightning? it looks like a cat"  
Dark Lightning was, according to Vanitas quite an unusual Unversed. that Unversed did not embody one single emotions, but many and seems to be affected by both Vanita´s and Ventus´s moods. most of the time. the Unversed was playfully and free spirited, but could get just as spiteful as its master, not that it did listen. Dark Lightning was the only Unversed that did not follow Vanita´s every command. it sort of did what it wanted.

Vanitas snorted, well knowing that he wasn´t the only one who created that unusual Unversed "you are the cause of that"

"you mean I´m affecting the Unversed?" Ventus asked pretty obvious and thought out loud, "would explain why some of them looks so silly" he did no longer seeing those creatures as monsters, mostly because those around never attacked anyone.

"Ventus?"

Ventus turned away from Vanitas oblivious that the raven haired shot lasers at him from the remark of his Unversed. the blond boy looked to the door where the voice came from.  
"Mickey!" he smiled big and leaped over to the small king. happy to see an old friend again.

Mickey smiled back to the blond, however it faded as he glanced to the raven haired boy who pouted annoyed on the bed. he did know Vanitas was here, Mickey was at the tower when Ventus brought him here and even now, he still did not fancy the idea having the dark hearted boy around. "could I speak with you for a moment" Mickey asked, not comfortable speaking around Vanitas. he accepted him of not attacking without warning, but that was as far that went.

Vanitas knew exactly the reason and gave the small king a glare, which Mickey acted like he didn´t notice, but the small king did look like he was ready to call his keyblade.

"uh, sure" Ventus nodded, confused over this, having no idea of the tension between the king and Vanitas. he gave Vanitas one look, before following Mickey outside.  
outside the tower, Mickey asked "you haven´t forgotten what he has done, right?"

"of course not" Ventus shook his head. he never have and never will, but he couldn´t keep blaming Vanitas for something he didn´t really have control over. "but he has change, he may not admit it, but I have seen it" he has seen that behind the tough and rude attitude, Vanitas has a caring side.  
"he actually kinda fun talking to, when you get used to his rude remarks" he added chuckling with hands behind his head.

"gosh, I would´ve never thought it would´ve been possible" Mickey admitted, when he heard from Yin Sid that he would allow Vanitas to stay. he feared the worst, never once thinking that Ventus would be helping the boy who almost killed him in the Keyblade Graveyard.  
he smiled weakly up to the boy "I admit I still have my doubts, but I trust you know what you´re doing"

"thanks Mickey" Ventus smiled, the smile faded a little of a question that quite for a while weighed on his mind "any news about Terra?"

"...sorry Ven..."

up in the tower Vanitas watched from the star formed window Ventus head and shoulder drop in disappointment, he did not hear the words but from the sadness and disappointment vibe he got from the other ones heart. Vanitas had a good guess it was about his friends.  
a small twit told that the only friendly Unversed Vanitas ever has created has come over to him.  
"it is always about his friends" he sneered down to the Flood that looked like it has been mixed with at cat.  
he felt angry. he wasn´t really sure why. Ventus did tell him that his friends was part of their heart and they was a part of his. but he was a bigger part of the blond´s heart, he was half of it, and he saw no place for Terra and Aqua. Vanitas did not want to have anything to do with Terra and Aqua, he only wanted to have anything to do with Ventus. he would never admit it, but he was beginning to care for the blond, and the more he began to care and open up to Ventus, the less pain he felt. he knew what it was, he have felt it from Ventus when he was surrounded by Terra and Aqua. it was friendship, and that friendship; created Dark Lightning, one of the reasons why it haven´t been destroyed.  
he has become friends with Ventus and he wanted to keep Ventus for himself, he wouldn´t share this friendship with any others, not even Terra and Aqua.

Ventus blinked of something dark he felt, he looked up to the tower and saw Vanitas was looking out from one of the windows, looking both angry and sad. it took him a while to figure out what the dark feeling was, for he haven´t felt it before himself. Vanitas was jealous, but why was he jealous? he could only feel the other boy, not read his mind. would´ve been easier to figure the raven haired out if he could.

Mickey followed the blond´s eyes and noticed Vanitas as well "he don´t look happy"

"no, he isn´t" Ventus admitted and added to the small king "and I´m going to figure out what is bothering him"

"promise you be careful, he might have changed, but he´s still dangerous" Mickey called

Ventus promised he yet, he saw no reason to promise. he did not fear Vanitas anymore, so he had no worries when he confronted Vanitas later that day of why he was so angry?  
at first Vanitas refused to tell, but with a few push, the raven haired almost exploded.

"it have always been about you and your friends, nothing else matters! you don´t want to be around me anyway, you only stick around because of your pathetic bleeding heart! if you want them around so much, then why don´t you leave?!"

okay, so that´s why he so angry. Ventus still got taken by surprise by the other ones sudden angry outbursts but thankfully, his own mild temper helped him looking through Vanitas´s anger and see the problem. "so you´re jealous at my friends?"

Vanitas snorted like a angry child "no" he lied, it was almost funny if not this one could easily put a keyblade through your skull. a confused twit from the friendly Unversed made Vanitas go a little more into the details of why he was angry.  
"I just can´t see why you gets so upset about them all the time. what do they do other than hold you back?"

that was an easy one "they make me happy" Ventus replied.

yellow eyes turned to him, they were still angry, but there was something else in them too. longing?  
"happy" Vanitas repeated as if he didn´t understand. he turned away again, looking at the sleeping Unversed, asking as if he didn´t care "that´s all?"

"how long do you want the list?" Ventus softly retorted. he got a odd stare from Vanitas and he said to the raven haired with a sight "Aqua and Terra are like a brother and sister to me, they has been there for as long as I can remember. true, they both can be very overprotective at times, but they only do that because they love me and don´t want me to get hurt." he eyed Vanitas who once again kept his eyes on him, watching with the natural face, showing he had his full attention on him. "Aqua is out there, looking for Terra and I wish to help, I promised Terra that I would be there for him."

"you do realize that Terra can´t be saved?" Vanitas asked sharply

Ventus shook his head, smiling "I saved you, so Terra can be saved too"  
Vanitas´s eyes got almost twice as big, from those words. Ventus wanted to help Terra, that was certain yet he spend precious time helping Vanitas, he saw the raven haired as a friend, even as a brother he lost years ago. he have never said it to Vanitas in fear it would break the thin line of friendship between them. "you´re my friend too." nodding towards Dark Lightning "and you see me as one as well, Dark Lightning is the prove of that, right Dark?" he asked and smiled to the Unversed whose lightning shaped antenna twitched slightly in response.

Vanitas turned away, snorting "don´t get mushy over me Blondie" but he couldn´t hide the small smile on his face.

"heh, sorry" Ventus smiled with hands behind his head and even he saw the smile, he did not mention it, for Vanitas could retort with his keyblade if he got too annoyed.  
still he was really beginning to worry about Terra, who knows what Xehanort was doing with him. he wanted Vanitas to come with him, but from that outburst, he wasn´t sure if Vanitas wanted to help him finding Terra and even fight his old master.  
"Van" he lowered his hands, no longer smiling "come with me"

"what, and help you save your friend?" Vanitas asked, adding rude "I don´t think so"

Ventus head dropped, he knew it might come for this. he was forced to chose, and it was hard. he did not want to ruin the new friendship with Vanitas, but he couldn´t abandon the one he saw as his older brother either. "I´m sorry, I wish it didn´t have to come to this." he said and told the dark hearted boy that he would leave the tower the next morning.

"yeah, yeah, whatever" Vanitas brushed him off, not as all faced by the thought of him leaving. ironically, Vanitas thought that Ventus only said it to make him run after him, he never thought that the blond meant he would leave.  
but even the small cat looking Unversed knew that was one big fat mistake. it made a pouting whistle, turned into a small screech as its owner throw a book at it.  
"shut it" Vanitas snorted.

the next day, Vanitas watched the other boy thanking Yin Sid,and after giving Vanitas a 'I´m sorry' look, he left the tower.  
Vanitas stubbornly acted like he didn´t care when he actually did and didn´t want the blond to leave.  
an hour after Ventus have left and Yin Sid approaching the raven haired boy who had all the time starred out from the window with a pretty impatience Dark Lightning beside him, almost like it was waiting for Vanitas to realize that Ventus wasn´t coming back. but the raven haired kept stubbornly this going and there was nothing the cat sized Unversed could do about it.

"he will return" Vanitas told himself, which wasn´t the first time he had said it in this stupid form of a waiting game.

Yin Sid mused deeply, went over to the boy and said calmly "you know very well that´s a lie"

"Terra is lost" Vanitas snapped back "nothing can bring him back!"

the old keyblade Master wasn´t faced by the anger of the boy, he kept his eyes to the realm outside "Ventus thought that too when he brought you here"  
the boy blinked of those words, not sure what this have to do with Terra. Yin Sid continued, still not looking at the boy "he knew how you felt, but did not know how to mend the pain Xehanort had inflicted on you. there was a moment he believed that anyone Xehanort has been near never would recover, then you began to heal." he eyed the boy "you became his beacon of hope that Terra can be saved"

...what? he was the whole source of Ventus kept on believing that Terra could be saved? that´s stupid!  
"I´m nothing like Terra. he´s under Xehanorts control"

Dark Lightning gave him a look that did said 'and you weren´t?'

Vanitas never got Xehanort´s heart inside of him, still he was under the man´s control for several years. Ventus might think that Terra can be saved, but Xehanort would squash him like a bug before he even got the chance of getting Terra back. someone have to keep that runt safe, only one problem: his so called friends had no idea where he was...  
"dang it..!" Vanitas growled.

"you know what to do" Yin Sid said. still keeping his eyes to the realm outside, but he knew what Vanitas was leaving from the sound of stomping footsteps and a ordering the small Unversed to follow. moments later, the sound of a dark portal could be heard.  
"good luck" the sorcerer mused.

after some time after Vanitas have left to search for Ventus, the retired Keyblade Master turned around. for someone else has stepped inside the tower. he eyed person once and said mostly to himself "I have been wondering when you would return"

"it´s been long, but I´m back" the figure said, being almost the same size as Mickey, except the ears was longer, body more ribbit like instead of mouse and the clothing was blue instead of red. he added with eyes away from the sorcerer "I met someone named Sora and some of his friends"

Yin Sid mused turned to the figure, asking "and what do you make of Sora?"  
and the stranger said with a smirk "he´s truly a special case"

"I´m glad you like him Oswald"


	5. Chapter 5: Forging the Key of Heart

**A/N: this story happens happens just after the chapter "Frozen Heart" in these small fanfic and  
transpires in the chapters of "A big, crazy rescue" and the beginning of "Spiritual forest" in my story "True friendship never dies."**

**I waited for a while submitting this story, because it is filled with plots of where I am heading in these fanfics**

_"the pieces are coming together, friends are becoming enemies and truth of who the Seekers are are revealed" my eyes went to the newest drawing I have made, a drawing of Sora fighting someone very similar to the small King Mickey, yet that wasn't Mickey.  
I don't know who it is, all I know that he is from the same place where Mickey lives and somehow knows about the great Keyblade Master from the old times._

After have giving some very strange instructions from a mysterious hooded man, Sora, Riku and Kairi returned back to Radiant Garden, although they were all unsure if what the hooded said about someone being there could help them was true. all what knew that they have to try.  
not long after their arrival, a awesome sight of a huge bear with blue stones around its shoulders charge right at a Behemoth and took it out with a single strike with its paws.

"did you see that?" Kairi gasped in awe of that bear took out a pretty powerful Heartless with no effort.

"sure did" Sora nodded and wondered out loud "I wonder what it is?"

"definitely not a Heartless" Riku said, keeping his eyes on the bear creature wandering rather calmly towards the city. "we should make sure that creature is friendly"  
with a nod from Sora and Kairi, the trio ran towards the maw. just outside the city, they encountered the trio called the Gullwings, but they weren't alone.  
speaking with the fairy trio stood a person they never have seen before, it was a man with brown skin. wearing a brown robe with a sash that covered most of the head, and they couldn't see the face thanks to a mask in form as a bear.

"that was awesome!" Rikku cheered and made a small jump to show how awesome she thought it was that the man´s bear destroyed a big Heartless. the darker Gullwing Paine nodded in agreement "pretty impressive" far more calmly than her companion. their leader; Yuna flew up to the masked man, smiling "yes thank you for saving us"

the masked man nodded to them and said with a deep voice "you should return back to the city. no treasure is worth a life"

"we will!" Rikku said cheerful, her two friends nodded and they turned around, just as Sora and friends appeared.  
"oh, hello again" Yuna greeted to the three wielders, flying over to them.

Sora nodded to the Gullwings in greeting, before he turned to the masked man who stared at them with a calm demeanor, but what got both his and his two friends true attention was the keyblade in his hand.  
"you're a keyblade wielder?" Sora asked kinda shocked, mostly because he never thought he would meet more wielders of the keyblade.

"not a mere wielder young man, I´m a Keyblade Master" the masked replied kind even it was a little hard to hear with that deep voice. the keyblade disappeared as he remarked "and you're not unfamiliar with the keyblade either"

"no, me and Riku has been training to be keyblade masters" Sora explained and turned to his silver haired friend "only Riku became master though"

the masked nodded and said to Riku "I can see why, it´s rare to meet someone so young have so strong resistance and control over darkness while I can clearly see you belong to the light"

Riku blinked of the masked words, not sure what he should say of the flattery other than "thanks"  
he was taken quite aback that this keyblade master knew so much with only what seems like the same form of sensing he could.

the masked turned to Kairi, seemingly happy "ah, one of the Princesses of Heart. I admit I'm surprised seeing you having a keyblade as well"  
he chuckled "but maybe more of the pure heart should follow your example. after all, you aren´t completely defenseless"

Kairi smiled of the praise the masked gave her. still she had to ask as the huge bear from before came up to the masked who strangely enough has a bear mask.  
"what is that creature behind you?"

the masked turned around to the creature, asking "first time you have seen a Keeper?"

"a Keeper?" Sora asked, eyeing the bear with the pale blue eyes. to his surprise, the eyes suddenly changed creepier as a oval pupil arrived and darker shade of blue surrounded the pupil.  
but it was Riku who was most shocked at the sudden change of the Keeper´s eye. he called his own keyblade, looking down to the blue eye in the middle of Way to Dawn´s handle, an eye he knew as Eye of Darkness.

"I see you are not unfamiliar with the Eye of the Watcher either"

"I have always thought the eye was a sign of Darkness" Riku said.

the masked made a soft sigh and admitted "I'm not surprised" he eyed his own keyblade, it was brown and big, having the same bluish stones on the handle. at the hilt, a bear´s face could be seen, it had the same markings around its eyes as the bear Keeper. the masked man lifted his keyblade, showing that it too had a Eye of Darkness on the keychain or Eye of the Watcher the man called it. the trio stared at the eyes as the masked man explained.  
"the eye has a deeper meaning. some gets the eye on their keyblade or weapons if they are seeking something or watching over someone. and one of its other symbolism is that every Keeper, good or evil; always bear the Eye of the Watcher" he dismissed the keyblade "and every keyblade that have created a Keeper has the eye as well"  
the Bear Keeper´s eyes turned back to the pale blue color and disappeared with rocks and light, leaving a small item behind. before any of them could see what the item was. the masked keyblade master took it and went towards the city with; "we have much to talk about it seems. we should speak in more peaceful place than here" just as a Heartless tried to attack him but with a single strike of his keyblade, it disappeared and the masked man muttered "these pests are getting on my nerves"  
at the entrance to the city, he stopped and introduced himself kindly "my name is Master Ursus"

"I´m Sora"

"Riku"

"and I'm Kairi"

Ursus nodded once and took the lead once again "follow me please"  
Sora, Riku and Kairi followed Ursus towards the castle, and to their surprise it seemed he knew the castle for he lead them into a room none of them has seen before.  
the room looked very much like the huge library, except the room was way more open and only the walls shelves held books. the room had two floors, the upper floor lead to more books and the lower floor, the one they stood in had a single table make out from oak, on the table stood a chessboard with handmade chessmen the resemble of animals, the black king were missing though.

"I didn't know this room existed" Riku admitted as he went over to the table and looked at the chess board.

"it is because it shouldn't really exist" Ursus said as he went past Sora and Kairi who enjoyed the view over the city from the huge window, musing before muttering mostly to himself "none of us should be here actually..."

Sora turned away from the window, confused by the Keyblade Master´s words "what do you mean by: shouldn´t exist?"  
Ursus glanced to the boy, but to Sora´s disappointment he said as he softly shook his head "I'm sorry, but I cannot tell you"

Sora frowned "it seems that many wishes to keep secrets lately" first it was that woman named Adria, then it was the hooded guy and now Ursus.  
well, maybe Ursus could help them with something else, hopefully "then what about the Key of Heart?"

"how do you know of that keyblade?" Ursus asked, voice turned harsh of surprise.

Riku moved a single chessman as he replied "we saw an incomplete Key of Hearts on our first journey"

"and the one who lead us here said that there was someone who could help us completing it" Sora explained to the Keyblade Master. "could you be the one he mentioned?"

Ursus did not answer at first, instead he went over to the chess board, placed a black king on the board and moved one of the pawns. only then he spoke "I know how to summon it, yes"

"then, you can help us" Sora said both hope- and cheerful that they found the right one, however his smile faded when Ursus said hard "but it does not mean I will help you making it"

"why not?"

Ursus made another move on the chessboard and said again softly "because that keyblade is too powerful. it belong in the same place where the X-blade resides"

Riku moved a white chessman and said calm "what is so dangerous about the Key of Heart?" and Kairi asked the older man slightly confused "isn't it like an ordinary keyblade?"

"no, the Key of Heart is not like the common keyblade. that keyblade can; like the X-blade open the path to Kingdom Hearts. as you probably know; every keyblade can unlock any lock."

the trio nodded.

Ursus continued "but the Key of Heart can do more than that, it can unlock everything, even someone's heart. the wielder of that keyblade can unlock the light or the darkness within a person, make either of them consume the heart"

"what about releasing a heart?" Sora asked, he crossed his arms and made a suggesting "like, someone posses someone else's heart?"

"separations?" the black knight chess piece got moved "yes, the Key of Heart can do that too" Ursus admitted, asking slightly confused "why are you asking?"

"you see, there is a few people we need to save. and one of them. well... he is being possessed, according to Aqua" Sora tried his best to explain. fortunately for him, Riku took over, way more familiar with this subject "his name is Terra and a man name Xehanort has taken control over the darkness in his heart and using Terra as a vessel against his own will"

"the sounds horrible familiar" Ursus admitted, but he did not go further into details. he stood for a while in deep thoughts. what felt like an hour later, the keyblade master said "even though I´m fairly vigilant about the thoughts of summoning such a dangerous weapon. I can see your intentions with that keyblade is good, so I have decided to help you"

Sora gasped in relief "really?!"

Ursus nodded, but have to add "but I´m not comfortable letting a mere trainee wielding such a powerful weapon, I would prefer it is wielded by a Keyblade Master."

"Riku is a Keyblade Master" Kairi suggested. Ursus eyed the silver haired boy and nodded "yes, so I would allow Riku to wield it"

Sora far too well remembered the hooded words, but if Ursus said he would rather have Riku to wield the Key of Heart, then it have to be that way. he didn't really care, just so long that keyblade could help them saving their friends.

"I will gather the six princesses" Ursus told them, summoning his keyblade "meanwhile, you should help the resident against the Heartless threat. it is our duty as wielder of the keyblades to protect the worlds against the Darkness"  
the trio nodded and left the room, leaving Ursus on his own.

with those three gone.

a small figure appeared, looking up to Ursus with hard eyes. the keyblade master sighted and said without turning around "if you think my choice was wrong, then be my guest and strike me down "

"you know I wouldn´t do that"

Ursus turned around, facing the other Keyblade Master "then tell me Lucky One, why are you here?"  
he didn't get any answer.

_

Sora Riku and Kairi helped the Restoration Committee with the Heartless, those dark beings has always been a problem ever since Xehanort; who acted like one of Ansem´s apprentice unlocked the Door to Darkness in this world. fortunately, the Heartless mass has been decreased thanks to the united work of the Restoration Committee and the visiting keyblade wielders.  
after spending some time helping with the Heartless. Leon told them to the trio´s relief that things has gone surprisingly well. maybe it was because that darkness was losing its grip around the world, or maybe it was because they got more help with the Heartless since the apprentices of Ansem returned, either way, Radiant Garden has almost fully recovered from its countless attacks and transformation from Hollow Bastion back to its original name.

"that´s is good news" Sora smiled to the leader of the Restoration Committee. Leon gave the teen a nod and everyone in the room turned to the door as someone in a white coat walked inside. it was Ienzo.

"Ienzo" Kairi greeted with a warm smile. the youngest of the apprentices simple gave her a polite nod before saying why he was here "you're needed at the castle" remarking with his hand up to his face "for some reason, another wielder of the Keyblade has invited every Princesses of Heart to the castle" the young man eyed the trio "and he´s asking for you to make an appearance"

"that didn't take long" Riku said quite surprised and along with Ienzo, the three wielders went up to the castle and into the same place where Maleficent tried get to Kingdom Hearts. the place has changed quite a bit, all the pipes were gone and the room has gotten lighter, not looking so gloomy anymore. Ienzo left them at the entrance of the room and the three friend walked inside where all six princesses of Heart waited along with Ursus and to the trio´s surprise, Aqua was there as well.

Kairi ran over to one who passed the keyblade to her, smiling happy of seeing Aqua again.  
the blue haired woman smiled sweetly to Kairi, also happy to see the teen.

"when did you get here?" Kairi asked.

"I was on visit in Cyndella´s world when Ursus came" Aqua explained.  
she and Kairi turned to Ursus when he cleared his throat and asked "you ready?"  
both females nodded and like Sora and Riku, turned to the princesses.

Ursus went over to them and explained "the reason I brought you here is because these young people" he glanced to Sora, Riku and Kairi "has asked me helping them bringing a certain keyblade back to the Realm of Light. and in order doing so, we need your help" he eyed each of the seven princesses "so I ask you Princesses of pure hearts; will you help us?"  
with almost no hesitating, each of the princesses agreed on helping, for even though Riku had in the past kidnapped some of them, they could see that he has changed and was at Sora´s side. and all of them trusted the brunette, they have all seen the strength and light in that boy´s heart.  
and so, every single of the princesses gathered into a circle and used their light to call the keyblade that once before has been created by their light. this time however, it was with no force.  
the light gathered in the middle of the circle and with a flash, a keyblade fell to the ground, piecing down into the floor and still with light around; a keyblade stood in the middle of the circle.  
the princesses separated, allowing Sora and Riku to go over to the keyblade.  
the keyblade; the Key of Heart did at first glance look very alike to the one Ansem the Seeker of Darkness created with Riku´s body under his control. but with closer inspections, everyone could see some changes on this keyblade.  
it was no longer black and red, now it was lighter; skyblue and silver to be exactly. having a full heart mark at the edge at the blade and its handle having far more on it. this keyblade did as well have a keychain. it was a crown with the Eye of the Watcher in the middle.

Sora and Riku glanced to Ursus and the keyblade master turned to Riku, giving him an sign to approach the keyblade. the silver haired boy did, but just as his hands was about to take hold on Key of Heart. unwelcome guests appeared.  
all around, Heartless arrived, surrounding the keyblade wielders and the princesses. Ursus took a quick control over the situation "Master Aqua, bring the princesses back home, I´ll help you." he turned to Sora Riku and Kairi "you three will keep the Heartless away while we do so"

"right" the three friend nodded and went in battle stage against the Heartless.  
Riku glanced back when Ursus added hard "by first change, grab that keyblade" the masked man eyed the blue and silver keyblade "it can´t get into the wrong hands"

"understood" Riku nodded and the wielders of the keyblade did what Ursus wanted them to.  
Sora, Riku and Kairi kept the Heartless away from the portals Ursus and Aqua have made in order to bring the princesses to safety. the Heartless were more or less easy enough to keep at bay, but the unwelcoming visitors wasn't over.  
on the upper floor, green fire appeared and out from them. the dark fairy; Maleficent made an appearance with Pete by her side. the dark fairy smirked as her eyes went to the Key of Heart "ahh the keyblade to people hearts, I have heard much about it" but she was more interested in the masked man not far from the keyblade, she have met one of his comrades and knew where Ursus was from.  
"Ursus, am I correct?" she asked and the Keyblade Master turned to her, answering hard "what do you want?" not at all feeling threaten by her presence. he was confident in his strength.

Maleficent was a little irritated that Ursus did not pay her more respect, but from the last encounter, she wasn't really surprised "I want the book of prophecy and all its powers!" she said and spread out her arms.

Ursus snorted "you have to get through me first" and he went in battle stage against her "and even the few tomes I have won´t give you the full book's powers"

"don´t worry, your comrade Leopardos gave me his pages when he joined the Darkness"

"what?!" Ursus gasped, for the first time losing his cool. he growled almost like a real bear, angry of these news "how could this happen...?"  
and as if things weren't bad enough, an strong quake told that there was someone or something attacking the castle. Ursus turned away from the evil fairy and to the quake, not sure if he should investigate or stay and fight the fairy.  
he took his choice and called the youngsters "Sora, Riku, Kairi, go and help the rest of this world!"

"what about you?" Sora asked after have slain a Heartless.

"you shouldn't worry about me." Ursus lifted his keyblade "I´m a true Keyblade Master" he eyed Maleficent under his mask "fighting this compares nothing to what I saw in the Wasteland"

"go, I´ll stay and help" Aqua said and a nod, Sora, Riku and Kairi left the room, just as Ursus jumped into battle against Maleficent.

_

still inside the castle, the two guards, Aeleus and Dilan had their own share of invading Heartless. the trio helped the two guards, but Dilan would prefer they helped the city "we have these fiends under control." he told the trio.

"okay, be careful" Sora said and left with his friends.

Dilan chuckled, finding it pretty ironic "from enemy to ally, never would have thought it"  
Aeleus simple nodded and both returned to fighting the Heartless.

outside, Heartless attacked everything that moved, but luckily there weren´t as many as when Maleficent had send her 1000 Heartless at the city.

"Leon!"  
the leader of the Restoration Committee turned around to the three wielders and remarked dryly "don't worry, we got this" he eyed Yuffie who struck down a Heartless without much worrying about being attacked by others.  
"they aren't as many as the last time"

"that´s good news, right?" Riku said, although he did get a little uncertain with the worried frown on the older male's face.

"it is, but it isn't the Heartless that is the problem" Leon pointed out to the maw and out there, they saw, what probably might be another Keeper. this one looked like a goat of some species, its horns was long and compared to its buff appearance, the Goat Keeper leaped on the cliff surprisingly agile. on one of the cliffs it made a pretty disturbing "Braaa!" which sounded more like nails on a board.  
around it, Heartless arrived, almost like they obeyed its command.  
"that creature is the source of the Heartless" Leon said and asked Sora "do you think you could take it out?"

"sure" Sora nodded, he turned to his friends "together we can do it"  
Riku and Kairi nodded and ran out to the maw to catch this other Keeper.  
out in the maw, the Goat Keeper stood, as if it waited for them. not a good sign.  
"huh?" Sora blinked, confused over this behavior.  
the Goat Keeper stared down to them with its creepy demon like eyes, then with another ear piercing screech, it attacked.  
the trio quickly went against it, but then the Goat Keeper changed tactic and began running and jumping around them, to suddenly charge at Sora and Kairi who had let their guard down of confusions.

"look out!" Riku called and made a shield to his two friends. it protected them against the attack, but Riku lost the shield because it has been a really strong attack. the Keeper turned swiftly around to the silver haired and rammed into him once again.

"Riku!" Sora called horrified as the Goat Keeper´s attack was so fierce that it forced Riku up against a cliff. Riku did succeed in defending himself from the first attack, but his shield shattered as the Keeper backed enough away to ram against him, and again. and it did not make it any better than the silver haired stood up against a wall, at the third attack; Riku was barely conscious as it went for another go.  
"stop it monster!" Sora roared as the Keeper was about to ram itself against Riku the fourth time. Sora struck his keyblade over the Goat Keeper´s face, making it back away and let Riku fall to the ground, allowing Kairi to heal her wounded friend. with most of his wounds gone, Riku warned his friend "don´t let your guard down around that thing!"

"got it" Sora nodded and charged at the Keeper who did the same. Sora jumped into the air, tried making another strike over its face, but the Goat Keeper made almost an U-turn so he only got the armored hide and before Sora realized it. the Goat Keeper used the flowing metal vines on its legs to an attack. several thorns of metal shot out from those vines, giving Sora no time to block and when the rain of sharp metal finally stopped. Sora could barely stand. "this is bad" he muttered through his hard breathing. this Keeper was unlike anything he has ever fought. he thought it was like the other monsters like the Heartless and Nobody dusks he and his friends have fought in their travels, but this Keeper was different from the others. this one could think ahead, it was like fighting a human and not some creature.  
the Goat Keeper turned almost casually around, almost like it knew Sora was on his last legs. with a snort, it charged. Sora closed his eyes, waiting for the devastating attack.

"enough"

the Goat Keeper stopped, much to Sora´s surprise. he opened his eyes and behind the Keeper, a man with a black cloak appeared. the cloaked chuckled and said with a voice greatly familiar to Sora "not many lives this long when they face a Keeper"

"you... have a Keeper?" Sora asked weakly, uncertain what it meant. for neither he nor Riku saw this monster under neither of the battles they did with this guy. did this mean that Xehanort have found and now controlled a Keeper?

the hooded took down the hood, revealing his face. "that's correct, although.. I wasn't the one who created it; this Keeper" Xemnas glanced to the Goat Keeper "is connected to my true self´s heart. and thus, it will only listen to those with his heart"

Sora looked up to the Keeper, slowly understanding why it was so ruthless- it was merely doing what its master would have done.  
he glanced back by Riku calling his name and his older friend casted a healing spell over him. Sora nodded thankfully to his friend and asked "where´s Kairi?"

"I asked Kairi to keep her distance" Riku answered, then turned to Xemnas, asking "what are you after?"

"Ursus"

both Sora and Riku gasped, none of them saw this coming, but Xemnas wasn't done and said with his monotone voice and facing towards the castle "or rather, one of my other incarnation is doing that. my job is merely keeping you away" he eyed them "but even if you defeat me, it is already too late. Ursus will join the ranks"

"he would never do such a thing!"

Xemnas smirked, the first real reaction that man has ever really done "he has already done it." he sat a hand up to his empty chest "he was in the ranks when we tried getting you to join us. Sora"

Riku blinked, far too well remembering the thirteen Seekers of Darkness inside the Room Where Nothing Gather. had Ursus really been one of them? then why...?  
"why isn't he now?"

"because, he returned back to his time. what you saw inside that room was mere illusions of what was going to happen. many of us has come back, others are still joining" Xemnas explained, not at all seemly worried about them knowing this.

Sora went in battle stage, he wasn't going to let Xehanort take Ursus. he was both a friend and a good ally.  
"we´re going to stop it!"  
Riku lifted his keyblade as well. Xemnas chuckled, snapped his fingers and the Goat Keeper attacked by his command. like all other times both Sora and Riku have fought one of Xehanort's incarnation. the battle was very hard and pretty long. and it did not make it better that the Nobody of Xehanort had a huge help from the Goat Keeper. the Keeper kept using its speed and element of metal to keep Sora and Riku away from Xemnas, who was hard enough to catch as it was.  
and even if they did not want it, Kairi joined to help and gave the final edge to defeat Xemnas. while she and Riku kept the Keeper busy with a united strength of magic and close up combat. Sora got close enough to Xemnas and give him the final blow to finish him off once and for all. the Nobody of Xehanort disappeared without a word, returning back from the place from whence he came.

"now to that Keeper" Riku muttered and he and his friends turned to the Goat Keeper. at first it did look like it was about to fight, then it turned its head towards the castle and like it got pulled by invisible strings. it ran towards the castle.  
forcing the three friends to follow.  
they lost sight of the Keeper inside the city, but there was something else far more important than the missing Keeper. out at the main street, another Xehanort stood, unlike Xemnas who have been using Ethereal Blades and the Goat Keeper. this Xehanort had the grey keyblade with the goat face on.  
lying on the ground was Ursus, unconscious and with Darkness sweeping around him.  
this Xehanort did not have the hood up either, so the face could be seen. like all other Xehanorts, this one have silver hair and yellow eyes. however, when he turned around, the face of a younger Xemnas could be seen, but this man wasn't Xemnas for he was destroyed.  
Riku blinked, feeling as if he knew this man from somewhere else. it was closely resembling to the feeling he got when facing Xehanort's Heartless. the feeling was just stronger this time.  
could this man be...

"Terra!"  
Aqua came running towards the man, towards the possessed Terra.

Sora blinked, baffled of these news "that's Terra?" and he eyed the man again. Kairi and Riku did the same, but Riku was the only one feeling almost the same as Aqua by seeing this man.  
Aqua stopped few meters away from the man, almost begging "Terra, please, if you can hear me; stop doing this!"

"your friend is long gone." the possessed Terra said, his voice was like Xehanort's Heartless, not the voice that belonged to Terra. "returned back to the Darkness"  
he even spoke like Xehanort's Heartless...  
the possessed man glanced down to Ursus, smirking "another has joined the ranks"

"not if I have something to say about it!" and from the top of a building, a small figure leaped towards the possessed man and struck after him. Xehanort blocked with his own keyblade, making it possible for those around to see what keyblade the new arrived had.  
it was the Key of Heart.

Sora gasped over seeing this, then his eyes went to the wielder. he blinked, for this person had the same size and almost same clothing as someone else he knew, could it be Mickey? "your majesty!"

Xehanort struck the figure and the person landed not far from the others. revealing that he wasn't Mickey for he had too long ears to be the small king also he looked closer to a rabbit than a mouse. not to mention the clothing was blue instead of red. the person turned his face around to them, saying spiteful "no, I´m not the beloved King Mickey"  
he turned back to Xehanort, but it was already too late. the possessed man disappeared with his prey. the stranger groaned "dang it..! I was too late"

"... who are you" Kairi asked and the stranger turned around. he sighted and muttered with an irritated tone "guess no one knows me nowadays..."  
he said that a bit too early...

"wahaha! well isn't that our lost leader?!"

the group and most importantly the rabbit turned around. Pete laughed again and said as he went towards the group "long time no see Oswald, I almost forgot about you"

Oswald puffed his chest up and fists his hands. "of all the people who could remember, it just have to be you" he spat looking ready to pound on the brute any second.

"you know Pete?" Sora asked the rabbit and Oswald replied shortly "yeah, he´s probably still angry over I beat him in that race" added with a careless shrug "I can't help he´s big and slow"

Pete did not take that nicely "why I outta..." and he punched out after Oswald, but as the rabbit have said, Pete was too slow and with a single kick from behind, Pete fell to the ground with Oswald on top.  
the rabbit stomped several times down on Pete´s back, remarking hard "still too slow you big brute!"

Pete growled "you little..! Heartless gather around!" he ordered and more Heartless appeared. attacking the rabbit.

Oswald quickly defended himself, not only by using Key of Heart. but an electric shield appeared on his left hand, from a device on the glove. the attacking Heartless got electrocuted and those who didn't, well they got whacked by Key of Heart. the rabbit growled annoyed that Pete has gone so far calling the Heartless.  
then to his surprise, Sora ran in to help and with the Heartless gone. Pete stomped his feet angry "I´ll get you the next time!" and he left as fast as his legs would allow him.

"I had it under control" Oswald said harshly to Sora.

"I was just trying to help" Sora said and added with eyes on the Key of Heart "when did you pick it up?"

"when the guy from before began attacked Ursus and the woman" Oswald mused and added hard to the three teens "I did not like he agreed on helping you, but it seems he trusted you guys"

"and you don't?" Riku asked.

Oswald turned his back to them "no, I have no reason to."  
he eyed the Key of Heart, muttering "and I see no reason to why you should have this keyblade either"

"that man you saw, he was a friend of mine. his name is Terra" Aqua explained, hoping the rabbit would understand "me and my two friends lost one another thanks to Xehanort. one of my friends; Ventus is alright now, but Terra..." she trailed off lowering her head. Oswald turned to her, no longer looking angry, this time he showed sympathy in his big dark eyes.

"I´m sorry about your friend, but..." he eyed Sora and Riku "even if you had this keyblade, it does not mean it will do what you want it to."

"meaning?" Sora asked, getting more and more confused over this.

Oswald sighed, again looking annoyed. but at least he was kind enough to explain as he showed them the keyblade "this keyblade; will reflect the wielder. if someone has a dark heart wields it, then if used, only darkness will come from the Key of Heart. the same if the person has a heart of light, but it won´t help. a heart needs both, it needs a balance." he lowered the keyblade "in other words: to bring those lost back, the wielder needs to understand hurt"  
he eyed them again "does any of you truly understand hurting? not you own, but others. being willing to help them, even if it seems like a lost cause?"

"we all would" Aqua said, but Oswald thought otherwise "then prove it to me. show me you are willing to take someone else's pain as your own. never turning away even if it meant falling to the darkness. even if the someone is someone you barely know"  
Aqua hesitated, true she would do anything for her friends. but to what seems like a stranger?

Oswald didn´t seem surprised by her hesitating. he turned to the three teens, and to his surprise. Sora stepped towards him, calling his keyblade.  
Oswald nodded and went in battle stage "show me how far you´re willing to go"  
and they charged at each other.

Sora quickly realized that the battle wasn't just two keyblades against one another, for the second his keyblade hit the Key of Heart, he and Oswald was surrounded by memories, at first Sora was startled, mostly because he could feel hurt, not his own, but what seems be from others. he was quickly taken back to the battle as the rabbit struck out after him. Sora fought the rabbit while he saw memories from when the Organization trapped him in a dream and his own heart showed him people who he needed his help. he saw Naminé, a strange black haired girl. he saw Aqua and the man from before, except his hair was brown and eyes blue, face genuine and friendly, he also saw Roxas and felt his pain as it has been his own, it has confused and enraged him what it all meant, and still he had gone further in, refused to back away even though it ended in him being trapped by the Organization and almost turned into a Vessel.  
he also felt that even this rabbit was hurting, he just didn't understand why. could it because he has been forgotten? he wanted to help the rabbit, trying to not making him feel so lonely anymore.

Sora slammed his keyblade against Oswald´s expecting the rabbit to jump off as he did before, but this time, the rabbit did not back away. Sora blinked and looked into Oswald´s eyes, they looked shocked, but also filled with understanding. "you´re already doing it" he muttered softly.  
the teen blinked, yet somehow knowing that the fight was over and both blade steadily released one another and went down to the ground. the realm of memories disappeared.

Oswald smiled softly up to him and to everyone's surprise, he handed Sora the Key of Heart "it is yours now"  
shocked, yet also feeling very honored Sora took the keyblade. he looked down to the rabbit muttering "you're also hurt..."  
Oswald nodded, but said with a smile "don't worry about me." his smile faded and he said seriously "you should help those who you saw. they need you, and now.." his and Sora´s eyes went to the Key of Heart "you have the keyblade to do it"

"how does it work?" Sora asked.

the rabbit smirked "just follow your heart" and added with a halfhearted shrug "and.. I hope I will meet you again" and with those words. Oswald took a white Star Shard and was gone in a flash of light.  
Sora and his friends watched the rabbit´s light leave the world.

"so, where are you guys going?"

Sora, Riku and Kairi looked upwards to one of the buildings. on the building sat the same woman Sora met on Treasure Planet, this raven haired woman with a deadly accuracy and kinda rotten attitude was Adria.  
the woman scratched her chin, sitting pretty relaxing on the roof. "from what I got from the conversation, you're going to save someone.. no?"

"how long have you been ear-dropping?!" Sora exclaimed annoyed.  
Adria shrugged with a smug smile, never revealing how long she has been there. she didn't seem to be on anyone's side, but she seemed to be a good person, so Sora saw no harm in telling her

"we're going to save someone I saw"

"and who is that?"

"some girl, with raven hair. not sure why, but I think she will be in Twilight Town."

Adria rolled her eyes, looking annoyed "sheesh, you´re not very good in the details.. anyway" she rose and said with a smirk "if you see that Oswald again, do say thanks from me"

"why?"

as reply, the woman took up her own Star shard, this one was purple. with a teasing wink she disappeared in light , just as the rabbit.

"what an strange woman" Riku remarked, he turned to his friend "guess you´re the wielder of Key of Heart after all"

Sora nodded and glanced down the keyblade, the one that would make him able to save those who are hurt. but that keyblade wasn't only that anymore, now it was also a sign of a promise, a promise to see an quite unusual rabbit again.

_

_with my sketchbook close to my chest, I walks downstairs and towards the pod that held Sora when I was helping him recover his memories. now it was holding someone else, still she isn't ready, but soon.  
I took up my sketchbook, looking at the drawing of Lea, Roxas and her sitting on the clock tower "soon, you will join them" my eyes goes up to her face_

_"Xion"_


	6. Chapter 6: Two sides of one Heart 3

**A/N:  
happens at the beginning of Replica returns and in Monsterpolis in my fanfic True friendship never dies.**

on his way to Radiant Garden, Ventus encountered someone he also met on his first journey. inside a small, red spaceship; the creature known as 626 flew off the world and out to the unknown. curious, Ventus choose to changes his direction and follow the blue creature towards wherever it was going.  
he speed up his glider and looked into the spaceship and facing 626. at first the creature did look quite confused, then it spoke happily in its alien language, only one word could be understood by the teen. "Ven!"

"where are you going?" he asked it, but all he got was more alien language he did not understand.  
still he followed 626 through the Lanes Between and close to a world filled with islands and waters, very similar to Destiny Islands, yet different.  
suddenly, out from nowhere; another spaceship appeared, this one bigger and far from friendly.  
Ventus turned around, confused of this ship sudden arrival, but before he could say or do anything. the ship shot at both him and 626. several of the shots hit the red spaceship and caused 626 to lose control, which caused in the ship ramming into Ventus and both fell to the world.

meanwhile on the world, inside a house a few miles away from the city, a small girl rested her head on the window frame with an sad expressions. however her face lit up in a smile when her eyes caught the sigh of what looked like a green fire ball the crashed towards the ground. "a falling star!" she cried happy and folded her hands to make a wish.  
"I need someone to be my friend... someone who won´t run away" she muttered. her reason? this little girl did not have a single friend, and without knowing, the falling obstacle was granting her wish.

at the crashing site, the experiment jumped out from the wrack and ran over to Ventus who laid half conscious on the ground from the crash. 626 titled his head towards the boy, not sure how to solve this "problem" his time in Radiant Garden have taught him to be nicer around people, but he did not really have friends beside from Sora and those three who taught him about friendship for so many years ago. one of them was Ventus and 626 wished to help... he just didn´t know how.  
"huh?" 626 turned around and jumped angry of the arrival of and small horde of Heartless. he shouted angry at them in alien language and attacked with his laser guns. he got most of them, and those who took the run for it, 626 followed and in a moment of battle lust, he forgot everything about Ventus and kept on following the Heartless out to an road.

Ventus opened his eyes of a pretty familiar sound, with a foggy sight he saw two Flood Unversed, both watching him with their angry eyes expression. Ventus wasn´t afraid of them, not anymore at least. now he took these fletching of emotions as a good sign and knew that somehow, Vanitas was nearby.  
not long after, another Unversed appered, this one could´ve been mistaken for another Flood, if not for the more cat-like appearcne. Dark Lighting ran over to the blond, stroke its head against his with a few sad twitting. Ventus sat his hand on the Unversed head, ensuring Dark Lighting that he was still there. the Unversed twittered happy and more so when Vanitas arrived, and with only an grunt. the dark haired boy casted an healing spell and helped Ventus back up on his feet.  
"thanks" Ventus muttered, feeling happy and grateful that Vanitas has followed him. he eyed the other boy, curious "how did you find me?"

"Dark is like a freaking bloodhound" Vanitas said and eyed Dark Lightning who looked up to them with a pretty cute expression.  
Ventus couldn´t help but laugh of that fact that the Unversed with an personality knew how to track either of them down. "must´ve gotten that from you" he said, far too well remembering how annoying it were that Vanitas had a nag of finding him when he considered the raven haired as an enemy.  
Vanitas only response was with an snort, then he changed the topic and asked while looking around the forest they have ended up in "so, found Terra yet in this jungle" voice filled with sarcasm

"very funny" Ventus snorted and explained of how he and the experiment 626 have been shot down to this world by some other spaceship. "and you arrived not longer after it ran after some Heartless"  
he finished explaining just as a screeching sound of a truck trying to stop but fail. both boys turned to the nearby road where the sound came from and also where 626 went in persuit for the Heartless.

"and now its road-kill" Vanitas remarked dryly, he glanced to Ventus who gave him a glare for that one and said even it was more of a question "unless it can survive being run over by a truck?"

Ventus did not answer the quistion, for he wasn´t sure himself, but he hoped 626 could survive when it could easily handle a big Unversed the last time he saw the experiment, not to mention crashing to this world and leave without a scratch. shaking his head, he turned to the road, muttering worried "I sure hope its alright..." and he ran towards the road, but when he and the quite reluctant Vanitas arrived to the road, both the truck and 626 was gone.

early the next morning, the little girl who made a wish on 626 falling spaceship went to the local animal shelter with her older sister. inside the shelter, her older sister Nani explained to the keeper of the shelter what she and apparently her younger sister was looking for in the animal shelter.  
"we´re looking for something that can defend itself... something that won´t die. something sturdy, you know?"  
"like a lobster" the little girl said, and her older sister said in matter of fact to her "we have a dog door. we are getting a dog" she said and turned back to the lady at the desk "what do I need to get one?"

the lady at the desk took up a piece of paper and explained that Nani needed to write down her name and address, adding kindly to the small child "why don´t you pick a dog while we do this?" she opended the door and showed her inside the kennel.  
the small girl went inside the kennel to find herself a dog, but just to her luck... there was no dog inside the cages "hello?" she called looking after a dog she could pick.  
meanwhile inside in one of the lasts of the cages, a certain blue alien woke up of the girl´s calling.  
"are there any animals in here?" the girl asked, beginning to get annoyed that no dog was in the cages. but if she have looked up, she would have seen that all the dogs has crawled up on the fences, all to avoid the alien.  
626 crawled out from its cage, landing not far away from the girl, sniffing confused. sure he has seen children in Radiant Garden, but most (except from Sora) was afraid of him. still the blue alien wanted to say hi and went over to her. the girl turned around, surprised to see a "dog" more so when this dog did have blue fur. still it was a dog in her head and she greeted it smiling "hi"  
to her bigger surprise, the blue "dog" copied her greeting and said "hi" with a kinda creepy smile. still the small girl did not run away as most did in Radiant Garden, so he tried something he have seen many do. he hugged her and the small girl was baffled "wow!" that instant she knew this blue, talking dog was the one. she smiled to 626, asked it to follow and the experiment followed her outside the kennel where her sister and the other lady spoke.

"oh, yes. all of our dogs are adoptable" the keeper of the shelter said and turned around as the girl appeared with her choice. quite startling, the lady jumped scared, yelling frighten "except that one!"  
both adults ran over to the girl and 626, Nani took her younger sister, asking "that is that thing?" while the other lady removed 626 away from the girl "A dog, I think" the lady said hesitant and added still shocked to see it moving around "but it was dead this morning"

"it was dead this morning?" Nani asked in disbelief and the owner admitted they thought it was dead, after all; it was hit by a truck.

"I like him!" the small girl smiled and called for 626 who completely ignored the lady who held him and went over to the girl.  
the two adults more or less failed in keeping the alien away from the girl.

"wouldn´t you like a different dog?" Nani asked while trying keeping the blue alien away from her younger sister, glancing to 626 as he picked his nose with his tongue.  
the little girl Lilo shook her head "no, I want this one, he´s good. I can tell."  
so Nani have to reluctant buying this "dog"

meanwhile in the town, Ventus kept searching for the blue alien with Vanitas casually following, not really giving a darn about 626.  
while the blond boy was searching Vanitas did notice a little girl walking with a pretty strange blue dog and began wondering.. "hey" he turned to Ventus, asking still pretty casual "is that your alien friend?" and he pointed at the girl with 626.

Ventus followed Vanitas finger and sighted in relief, he nodded to Vanitas, happy seeing that 626 was alright. he went over to the girl just as she bought two ice creams and gave one of them to 626.

626 noticed Ventus and began jumping up and down in sign of happiness, saying cheerful "Ven!"  
the girl turned around, curious what her dog spoke (she found it awesome he could talk) about and notice a older blond boy was walking over to her with a dark haired boy not far behind.  
the blond smiled to her dog as if he knew it "I´m glad to see you´re alright"  
"you know Stitch?" she asked with titled head.  
the blond boy blinked, looking for a few seconds confused, then he smiled with a nod "yeah, he´s a friend of mine" asking with a small frown "why do you call him Stitch?"

"it's his name" Lilo said in matter of fact and explained the older boy that she have just bought Stitch from the animal shelter and now she owned him. the blond boy looked a little baffled, and the dark haired one looked like he was about to laugh. Lilo titled her head, confused over their reactions "something the matter?" she asked.

Ventus wasn´t sure how to explain this to the little girl without revealing that "Stitch" actually came from another world and was far from being a dog.  
"well, it´s kinda of a long story" he began, not noticing that the small Unversed Dark Lighting has walked over to Stitch and looking curious at him. Stitch stared at the Unversed for a few seconds, then began growling; recognizing what Dark was.  
"your dog, um... he´s not really-" Splat!  
everyone´s attention was at Stitch. he has smacked his ice cream onto Dark Lighting´s head and the small Unversed fell over its own feet in trying to get the sticky stuff off.

"Stitch!" Lilo scowled at her dog and dragged him away from what she saw as a strange cat. the blond took the cat and removed the ice cream from its head.  
while the black haired boy remarked amused "I´m beginning to like Stitch" and added grinning to the blond "for _that_ was funny"  
the blond gave him a scowl that he wasn´t amused.  
Lilo wasn´t amused either over Stitch form of behavior "I think I need to train him in behaving..."  
the blond sat the cat down again, suggesting kindly "mind we help?"

"keep me out of this Blondie" Vanitas scowled, no way he was going to help such a hilarious creature turning boring. Ventus rolled his eyes and turned to the girl, saying still with that annoying kindness "I´m Ventus, but you can call e Ven" he eyed the raven haired "and that is Vanitas"

"I´m Lilo, nice to meet you" the girl Lilo said and was more than happy to receive help to train Stitch. she wanted mostly their help because she wanted some company.

Ventus helped Lilo in different tasks but it did prove to be quite difficult making Stitch behave, time after another the blue alien made life really hard for some people. an old groceries store lady got one of her big watermelons on her head, Lilo's "friends" bikes got destroyed, a volleyball player got his own volleyball thrown right at his face and almost knocking his teeth out. the list went on and it was really hard to keep Stitch from misbehaving, mostly because he had no idea how to behave, he never really learned that in his time in Radiant Garden. Ventus did see one good thing in all of this; Vanitas was enjoying himself and sometimes even laughing, even it was when Stitch was causing trouble.  
"at least someone is having fun" Ventus remarked to his dark haired companion, once again after having dragged Stitch away from some poor sod.

Vanitas snickered amused "of course it is funny, it´s not often I meet someone who likes to make people miserable just as much as me" he eyed Stitch who once again was misbehaving and Lilo's older sister dragging him and Lilo away.

"yeah but if he keeps this up-"

"we have to take him back" Nani said hard to Lilo, refusing to keep Stitch after what she have heard and witness of what he has done around town. and decided that Stitch was simple too much for her younger sister.

Lilo of course refused to let him go and yelled at her sister "he was an orphan and we adopted him!" asking hard "what about Ohana?!"

"he hasn´t been here that long!" Nani retorted angrily back, holding the struggling Stitch.

"Neither have I" Lilo gave back and said both hard and softly what Ohana meant "Ohana means family. family means..."

"nobody gets left behind" both said at the same time.  
Nani had stopped struggling against Stitch. and Stitch have stopped as well, surprised over the sudden change. even Ventus and Vanitas could feel the change, even though they watched the scene from a distance.

"or?" Lilo pressed her sister and Nani said with a sight "or forgotten. I know. I know" adding scowling yet with a genuine smile "I hate it when you use ohana against me"  
Lilo stuck her tongue at her and Nani retuned the favor, although a bit more teasing. with a sight Nani let Stitch go and Lilo walked back to the two older boys, apologizing for the scene.

"that´s alright" Ventus said with a faint smile.  
Vanitas stayed quiet for some odd reason with eyes looking quite distance in thoughts.  
with a suggesting to leave and maybe find something to make Stitch behave a little better, Ventus noticed that a certain blue creature was missing "hey, where´s Dark Lightning?"

Lilo looked around as well, admitting "boy I didn´t even notice it gone"

Vanitas searched for his Unversed as well, but Dark Lightning has gone into thin air. he cursed under his breath, why did this Unversed have to be so darn curious? it has probably been killed by Heartless or some people. then again, he haven´t felt it "die"

"we better search for it"

"why bother?"

"don't tell me-"

"oh it's still alive" Vanitas interrupted, still he couldn't see the big fuss about it. it was just an Unversed. a rather unusual Unversed... with a personality... but still an Unversed.

Ventus titled his head, pretty much oblivious what his darker half was thinking, yet he could make a rather good guess with the I-don't-really-care look Vanitas have in his eyes. Ventus saw Dark Lightning as a pet they had a responsibility for, while Vanitas... well he only saw the Unversed and even Dark as a monster or minion there easily could be replaced.  
shaking his head at this, Ventus said quietly "let's go" and he left to search for the cat like Unversed.  
Vanitas did follow, but only because he didn´t have anything else better to do.

***

meanwhile, just arriving to the world, Aqua walked through the town, wondering what the former captain of the huge spaceship was doing on this peaceful world. Aqua had decided to follow Gantu, just to see what the hotheaded alien was up to.  
to her surprise and shock, the experiment called 626 suddenly appeared with a young black haired girl, and to her greater shock. Gantu shoot a net at them, completely ignoring he also got the little girl.

"and here I thought catching you would be difficult" he laughed and took the net with the experiment and little girl inside. not at all caring that he captured a human and simple laughed that he got a "snack" for the experiment.  
he dropped both into a capsule, only turning around as Aqua shouted "let them go!"  
he took a little while recognizing her, when he did, the memories weren't pleasured "stay out of my way, you have caused enough trouble for me already"

Aqua ignored him, right now, the two inside the capsule was what matters "you can't just kidnap a little girl because you want 626-!"  
she jumped away from a plasma shoot he fired at her, enraged, Aqua called her keyblade, ready to fight.

Gantu placed the capsule with the two prisoners inside onto his back "and I say; stay out of my wa-"  
his words got cut short by a dark haired boy striking him over the shoulder. fortunately for the alien, his thick skin protected him from deep cuts and turned enraged to the black haired boy with the furies yellow eyes. "why you..!" he aimed his plasma gun at the boy in the strange bodysuit.

"is that..?" Aqua gasped "Vanitas?" she have never seen the boy without the mask, which did shook her because the boy's face looked awfully similar to Sora's. but she recognized the dark body armor and the keyblade Void Gear to be the boy who have tried harming her and her friends more than once.  
Vanitas, completely ignored her and in a roar, he charged at Gantu again. Aqua reacted, even though she did not like protecting this alien, her duty as Keyblade Master forced her to turn her attention towards the bigger threat: Vanitas.  
so before the boy of pure darkness could make a strike, she blocked the attack and used his moment of surprise to strike him and force him easily down to the ground, which did slightly surprise her. shouldn´t he have put up more of a fight than this?  
and if things did not get weirder, Ventus appeared and said something she never thought she would hear from him "Aqua, let him go!"

"what?!" she asked in disbelief, still holding her keyblade over Vanitas's neck. have Ventus forgotten what Vanitas did? "Ven, you can't be serious!"  
and to makes things worse, Ganut choose to take this strange situation to make the run for it.  
Aqua wanted to pursuit, but right now: Ventus odd behavior came first.

"I am serious, he's not evil"

"he is pure darkness"

Ventus did not like this one bit, of course Aqua would be hostile against Vanitas, but he did not have time to explain. the only good thing about all of this that Vanitas at least kept calm... for some odd reason.

"are you two done?" Vanitas suddenly asked, this talk about him being good began boring him. although Aqua's face was priceless. the only reason he even allowed Aqua taking him this easily down was only to get Ventus on his side, not to mention he wouldn't hear the end of it if he actually attacked one of Ventus' "best friends"

"Aqua, he's helping me" Ventus added in. Aqua looked really confused and he didn't blame her, she shook her head in confusions and asked with her blue eyes to him "how did it happen?" but before he could tell her, Vanitas suddenly used his dark teleportation to get behind Aqua and strike her down.  
she gasped in shock and landed on the ground, barely moving.  
"why did you do that?!" Ventus almost screamed at Vanitas, in disbelief he struck Aqua, one of his best friends down.

Vanitas gave him a deadpan look "we have someone to rescue, remember?" nodding towards the path Gantu ran through "and you would have giving her the whole darn story if I didn't stop you, idiot"

"but you didn't have to attack her!"

"I only knocked her out" Vanitas said pretty casually.

Ventus shook his head, still Vanitas was right. he eyed the raven haired boy, still angry "you are so going to apologies to Aqua after this" and he ran after Gantu with Vanitas short behind.

with no real worries, Gantu readied his ship for hyperspace, even felt so confident that he called the Grand councilwoman to tell her that he finally have found and captured experiment 626.

_"Gantu what is going on?"_ the Councilwoman asked over the radio and Gantu replied quite proud of himself "I thought you'd like to know that the little abomination to 626 is-" he got interrupted by the ship shaking heavily, and the sensors running amok of damage. he turned around to the engines and saw the same blond haired boy who helped 626 in escaping the first time now stood along with the raven haired boy on the ship. both piecing their blades into one of the engines. he growled and said to the grand councilwoman "I will call you back" he turned off the radio and grabbed the steering, no way he would let two brats stopping him in his mission.

meanwhile on the ship, after have damaged the ship with Vanitas. Ventus quickly went to the capsule to save Lilo and Stitch. finding the capsule was easy enough, and with the warning of moving to the end of the capsule, Ventus struck at the capsule, but right as his blade hit the small prison. Gantu made the fire of the engines aim right at him.  
"argh!" Ventus cried, literally got blasted away and fell from the sky, fortunately for him, he could fly. in a blast of light, he was in his armor and on his glider.

"Ven!" Stitch called after the small figure in pursuit after the ship, but the Glider was too slow for Gantu's ship.  
in a growl Stitch got out from the small hole Ven's keyblade have made and went to the ship, only stopping when Lilo said almost begging "don't leave me okay"  
"okay" Stitch said completely honest, the last thing he would was leave his friend behind. still he needed to deal with Gantu.  
Stitch joined Vanitas on the ship and with a grin on both faces, Vanitas ran towards the edge, jumped off and Stitch jumped onto Vanitas's keyblade and the dark hearted boy hurled the experiment with such force into the cockpit that the glass broke and Stitch yelled with a huge grin on his face "Aloha!"

Gantu did NOT like the teasing and slammed his fits against the experiment, for each hit saying a new insult to Stitch

"you're vile!"

"you're foul!"

"you're flawed!"  
the last hit got Stitch, but being a creature created to destruction made him quite resisting to hits and he barely felt the fit against his small body. he took up the hand with his own remarks of what he was "also cute and fluffy!" and with that, he threw Gantu out from the cockpit, making the ship loose complete control.  
quickly Stitch went back to Lilo and with a solid headbutt, he broke the capsule more than enough for him to get Lilo unscathed out.

"you came back" she said happy and he answered as taking her in his arms "nobody gets left behind" and just as the ship fell towards the island. Stitch leaped away from the ship and both him and Lilo got caught by Ventus who was more than happy to bring them down to safety.

on the ground:

"what took you so long?" Vanitas asked, sitting rather casual on a knocked out Gantu.

Ventus landed on the ground, armor dissolving and asked his darker half "how did-"

"dark portal" Vanitas shrugged, then notice that the blond was looking at Gantu "oh, I knocked him out" not sure how he should feel that Ventus wasn't really worried of him falling from the sky.  
however his sour mood did get a little better as Ventus gave him a smile and said "good thing you can teleport any time you want"  
Vanitas smirked in response and turned to approaching footsteps. arriving came Aqua and the Grand councilwoman.  
none of them looked very happy.  
by the order of the grand councilwoman, some guard aliens captured Stitch.

Lilo wasn't happy about that "leave him alone!"

realizing what was going on Gantu got Vanitas off his back, rose and tried to explain to the grand councilwoman, but she did not want to hear his excuses "Silence!" and Gantu went quiet, allowing her to add hard "I am retiring you! and you!" she turned to Ventus who flinched that her anger was suddenly on him " if it weren't for you, Experiment 626 wouldn't have-"

"Stitch"

"what?" the councilwoman stopped and turned to the blue alien there repeated "my name Stitch"  
"Stitch then" and she turned back to Ventus who almost hid behind Aqua. luckily for him, the grand councilwoman realized that the experiment 626 actually spoke and was rather polite, she turned back to Stitch there asked "does Stitch have to go?"

"...yes" the councilwoman replied quite hesitant and shocked that the before so vile experiment now actually was really polite.

"can Stitch say good-bye?" Stitch asked, again getting the hesitant yes from the councilwoman. he thanked her and went to Lilo, Ventus, Aqua and even Vanitas.

"who are you?"

Stitch turned to the councilwoman, explaining "these are my friends" he looked at Aqua, Ventus and Vanitas "and she is:" he looked at Lilo "is my family. I found it all on my own. both are little and broken..." he lowered his head slightly by that, but looked up with a genuine smile as he added "but still good" and with those words he went towards the councilwoman, ready to spend his exile as which he has avoided for so many years.

Aqua walked slowly over to Ventus there asked her sad "does he really have to go?"  
she sighted "sorry, but you know the law; we can't meddle in other words affair"  
even the councilwoman hands was bond by the laws of the council.  
then to her great surprise, Vanitas said "you can't take Stitch away" he eyed Lilo, asking "you did buy him right?"

Lilo gasped, ran to the councilwoman and showed the papers that she bought Stitch at the animal shelter, telling her hash "if you take him, you're stealing."  
that was more than enough for the councilwoman and with a smile, she allowed Stitch to stay on this world.  
a happy ending for Lilo and Stitch, both have found a friend they so much needed.

Aqua was happy for that, still... she turned to Vanitas. no longer sure what to do about him, he hasn't tried once (except from when he knocked her out) attacking anyone. she watched him stand rather casually with the little girl Lilo and the experiment Stitch both leaping happy around, even cracking a smile as Ventus spoke to him.  
was this really the same boy she fought those years back?  
"Ven" she called and Ventus blinked turned to her. to her slight surprise, he gave Vanitas a look for support, before walking with head down towards her as if he knew he was guilty of something.  
Aqua sighted and said to her younger friend "didn't I tell you stay back home?"  
Ventus did not answer, just kept his head down. Aqua glanced to Vanitas, the raven haired boy had his eyes on her and he looked quite angry.  
she ignored the raven haired and turned back to Ventus "why do you keep endangering yourself all the time? and what if... you could have been killed."

"would you give him a break?!"

Aqua turned to Vanitas, quite taken aback by this. Vanitas glared at her, furies "sure he says you says it because you care, but come on! stop holding him back already!"  
Aqua eyed Ventus, surprised "Ven?"  
he did not answer, so she turned to Vanitas, slightly angry by his outburst "why are you saying this? last time you tried to kill him"

Vanitas growled and snapped "that's none of you business"

"it is my business when someone tries to hurt my friends. you are the cause his heart went to sleep for over ten years"

"that -!"

"Enough!" Ventus said hard and looked at both of them "stop fighting!" he turned to Aqua "it wasn't his fault, Xehanort made him do it." his eyes saddens, yet still he continue "I'm the cause Vanitas exits"

"w-what do you mean?" Aqua asked, looking at both boys.  
Vanitas did not answer, he turned away; still with those angry eyes. Ventus however "Vanitas is my darkness." the blond boy looked straight into her eyes, showing this was the complete truth "he is me"

Aqua eyes wide of those news, that cruel, dark hearted boy... was part of the so kind Ventus?

"so please don't hate him. Vanitas, well he's..."

"ohana"

Ventus turned around to the raven haired, first surprised, then smiled and nodded in agreement "yeah, ohana"

"what's ohana" Aqua asked, more and more unsure what to do. her duty as Keyblade Master told that Vanitas should be destroyed, but her heart said that he was no longer was a threat.  
to her bigger surprise, it was Vanitas who replied.

"ohana means family, family means no one gets left behind..." he eyed Ventus who gave him a small smile. "or forgotten"  
he turned to Aqua, telling her in matter of fact " so, if you want to hate me; fine, but I'm staying at Ven's side whatever you like it or not"

"yeah, like a team of brothers!" Ventus smiled kinda childish, making Vanitas mutter with a flustered tone "...don't push it Blondie..."

Aqua eyed them both, seeing that even with the dark introduction from the past, Ventus has somehow succeed changing Vanitas, he was right, they were a team and there even seems to be something more. Vanitas was right, this bond they shared was ohana.

they are brothers.

she sighted with a small smile "alright, guess I have to deal" and she went over to both boys and placed her hands on both their heads. Ventus looked slightly surprised and a little annoyed, Vanitas just looked annoyed. "and I wish you both come with me on a small mission"  
she knew ordering them back to Land of Departure wouldn't work, beside, she was kinda curious about this bond they shared. was it possible that Master Eraqus was wrong? that darkness actually wasn't such a bad thing after all?  
Ventus was right, she can't hate Vanitas, for that would be like hating Ventus. they were in some sense the same person, two persons of one heart.

_

_I finished the drawing of Ventus and Vanitas leaving with Aqua, off to another world. I turned around of the sound of a door and smiles to my friend._

_"how are they doing?" he asks, and walks over to me. taking some of the drawings I have made of Ventus and Vanitas, his midnight blue eyes turn into a small scowl "isn't that.."_

_"Vanitas has finally found his true place" I tell him with a smile. my friend looks at me, glance to the drawing, then back to me, seemly rather confused. and I explain him what I mean:  
"their story seemed to end in sadness and despair, but I think the promise in the void finally has come truth." I tell him and we both look at the drawing of both Ventus and Vanitas standing side by side "things did get better for them"  
I turns to my friend "like it did for you"_

_he smiles weakly, but then turns his back to me, muttering unsure "but I still don't know my place..." he looks into the mirror I have placed in the room, the reflection of a dark haired and younger Riku meets him "I don't know who I am..." he turns away from his own reflection "I... don't even have a name..."_

_I walks over to him, takes his hands and answer completely honest "we'll figure it out, together" for like him, I know far too well the feeling of not knowing where to belong, I have found my place and I will help the Replica of Riku to find his and get real memories and not those fake ones I gave him in Castle Oblivion. these memories, they will be real, for the both of us._

_"thanks, Naminé"_


	7. Chapter 7: In Thei- his Memory

_"the more I look back the more I realize that without him, I would never I become the woman I am today. my life doesn't mean much, not as much as his did. he was my rival, and my friend._

all my life I knew what would happen, I, like many others was training to wield the mighty blade, called the keyblade. it was under my training I met him, back then he was just a scrawl of a boy, a runt and a weakling in my eyes. even though he was strong, strong enough to impress our master, I saw no strength in him. for years I and Markus trained to become masters and all that time I saw nothing but a rival in him I needed to squash. maybe I didn't like him because Markus never retaliated back in anger, always collected and strong, always seems to be thinking and acting the right place and time. while I always just did everything with my heart, it was- is filled with a fire so strong that anyone trying to extinguish it would get badly burned. Master chose me because of this fire in my heart, for my inner fire made me fearless and a true warrior.  
and I did become a true warrior, I was the one becoming a master first, for I knew what I wanted and wouldn't stop at nothing to get it.

Markus in the other hand, he only became master after two years after me. he didn't seemed to mind though, he spend most of his time tinkling with his small inventions. making him look quite harmless when he sits and play with his small machines.  
the only time Markus will show how fearsome he can be in combat that if someone is dumb enough to hurt any his love ones.  
and anyone dumb enough doing that would be lucky walking away.

Everything changed, one day.  
Markus left to see his family and when I saw him again. Markus was no longer the kid I remembered. he was in rage, out of control and broken. somehow, Markus have lost his sight, left his whole world in eternal darkness.  
in that instant he lost his sight, his whole future was thrown out of the window. he could no longer build on his small inventions or fight with the keyblade. his title as master meant nothing, for no one would see him as one when he couldn't barely walk around without hitting something.  
as I watched him, found myself pitying him. for more or less grown up with him, I knew how much this was hurting him.  
first, he didn't want anyone around, honestly I wasn't sure I wanted to be around him either, and still, as time passed, we both found ourselves enjoying each other company, our childhood rivalry dissolved into friendship and we agreed that we would both take the next step of mastery in sign of our friendship.

taking the next step is not a walk in the park, it is really difficult creating a Keeper, only the True Masters have done it.  
our Master wasn't one, and admitted that he probably never could become one, for becoming one. you have to realize who you truly are, know your strengths as much as your flaws and not many people like knowing you are far from perfect and your biggest flaw is what makes you a person.  
I saw what Master meant and would have stopped the training if not for Markus.  
he helped me getting my Keeper.

my Keeper, my manifestation heart is a fearsome Harpy Eagle, bearing my favorite gemstone; the ruby and wielding the fire that burns in my heart.  
seeing it appear before me was the happiest, yet somehow also my saddest moment in my entire life. it is very hard to explain, but not all likes to realize who they truly are, and I am one of them. for my Keeper not only showed my strength, but also my greatest weakness.

Markus got his Keeper as well, it was an Kangaroo, a kinda peaceful yet headstrong warrior, just like him. it had bright color plates on its head and back, moving of the sounds it makes.  
ever since Markus and I began our training, he began using the sounds as his new eyes. his world might be in eternal darkness, but in that darkness, there was a world of sounds, sounds only he could truly understand.  
and his Keeper showed it by taking that as its element. I was happy for him, but not all were.  
for Markus's Keeper revealed that Markus has fallen to the Darkness. and everyone who has so far is bad news.  
Markus struggled with the other True Masters because of this, for they couldn't see that his darkness was merely a part of him and wasn't evil.  
only I understood that, for I could feel a great light in him as well.

the news hit me as a brick wall.  
. it happed so suddenly, one day we were training together, the next I hear from Junsui that he is gone- destroyed by the darkness along with his Keeper.  
I refused to believe it, found it as a horrible joke but after searching for him and only found of my beloved friend's keyblade and his Keeper's broken token.  
it took me long to realize it, and when I finally that Markus is death. I cried like never before.  
even today, my heart still ache and all I want: is to find Markus killer and make him burn.  
unfortunately I can feel my broken heart's rage is making it weak.  
soon, I will be gone, but I hope I can take Markus killer with me before I fall.

if someone ever find this, don't give me any pity or wonder who I am. instead, remember my friend. for Markus showed me that Darkness is not such a bad thing as many believe. true it can be bad, but if you are more darkness than light or just control it better, then don't feel bad. it is just who you are.  
Markus was darkness, but he never turned away from the light, and when he looked at the darkness, he never blinked, he kept on looking. and only a few has the ability doing that.  
I was wrong about him as a child, he was stronger than anyone I have ever met.

Markus was and will be the first Hero of the Darkness, and I want the world to remember his name."

slowly he dropped the small book he accidently found in the mansion. he just found it strange that a small note book was in between all these bigger ones. never would he have thought that this book held the ancient words of a keyblade master and more so it was from the creator of the Harpy eagle Keeper.  
his midnight blue eyes went to the small book, thinking of the words of this keyblade master. thinking of this man she wrote about, a man who was darkness, yet still belonged in the light. it sounded very much like Riku, the one he was copied from.  
many thought Riku was the first who was darkness, and yet stood in the light, but oh how wrong they all were. there has been one before him, and if not he have found this book. Markus would have been forgotten.  
"I won't forget you" he said to the small book. this story somehow made him think about his own life, how his apparently fake life was one tragedy after another, that until Sora and his friends gave him another chance. another chance, just like Markus.

he turned around of the sound of a door, facing his only friend. he smiled weakly and said to her "I know what to call myself"  
still smiling as he glanced to the book that told a story of wants to keep close to his heart. he want to let the world know that darkness could be something good as well.

"my name is Marku" he eyes her again "and I'm one of the Heroes of Darkness"

Naminé blinked, then smiled as she saw a peacefulness in the replica's eyes she never has seen before. she realized that he has finally stepped out from Riku's shadow and willing going his own path.  
"it suits you" she said, yet have to ask "where did you get the name?"

Marku smiled, showed her the book with: "that's both a sad and heartwarming story" and they both sat down at the table and Marku began reading the book for her. 

* * *

Author: 

this story are very personal for me, for I used several experiance of my own to make this one.

I think the best way for you to truly understand, I have to reveal a little about myself.

for around two- almost three years ago, two of my friends gave me a cat, it was a stray, and yet he was very tame. I chose keeping this pretty big male cat and named him Markus, Marku for short. I loved him very much, even when he did get on my nerves and we sometimes got into "fights"

it was also about that time that I got a tumor behind my right eye, fortunately it was harmless but still it affected my sight, however it was only the next year it got so bad that I needed to get operated several times. unfortunately, Marku couldn't help me on the stress from the operations.

for one day Marku disappeared and I knew something was horrible wrong after a week he was gone and I began getting so worried that I feared the worst. my family didn't really understand why I was so worried, he was just a cat. but he was my cat, and I love him.

... I found him a few weeks later... death at the road... on his way back home from how close he was to my home... I was heartbroken, and even now, writing these words and seeing his body before my eyes still makes my heart ache.

and like before, my family, except my sister didn't understand why I was so hurt of loosing him.

and it couldn't happen in a worse time, as I said before, I was going through several operations for the tumor behind my eye and the constant risk of losing it really weight on my shoulders. and all the talk about it didn't make it better.

I did get a taste of becoming blind, for after one of the oprations, my skin around my eyes got so swollen that I couldn't open my eyes. I thought I had become truly blind when I woke up and couldn't open them, in those few moments, I realized how much I needed my eyes, how important they were to what I did in my daily life. in those few seconds, I thought I never would be able to draw all those images nor stories I so often have stuck in my head. never be able to see the world around me or the worlds movies and books shows us.

fortunately it wasn't pergament, but I was forced to play blind for a week and after that, the talk of the operations my sight became more of a sensitive subject.

only today, my eye is returned back to normal, still the experience of becoming blind and losing Marku have left a huge mark in me.

this very story is a fiction of those two life experience.

and maybe this will also explain why I gave Riku Replica that name, because in my eyes he got a second change like my beloved cat and I hope that if he ever return in kh3, that he never will suffer same fate as my cat, I hope that Riku Replica- that Marku will live and be a sign to me of what good things I got from that short year with that cat.


	8. Chapter 8: Tainted Darkness part 1

**takes place right after In Thei-his Memory and in the beginning of Let the storm rage. **

_ever since he found that old journal, Marku has truly put into heart to be his own person. It has been interesting watching him get in contact with the local and allowed them to help him get the hang of a new weapon. He has gotten so determent to not being Riku that he refuses to wield a blade like Soul Eater. He dragged me outside the mansion to his next training session, I was a bit hesitant but I am glad he persuaded me. It's nice being around people who doesn't know your past nor abilities. I have fun drawing Marku training with Seifer, it's relaxing drawing something that happens right before my eyes instead of from in the memories around me. _

_But... I still have a task, especially when these memories might help us against Xehanort. I just hope Sora, Riku and Kairi can save this weaken world from its sickness before it is too late._

,,,,,,,,,,

To whoever who came to this certain world would not be impressed by its looks, most of the world were barren and destroyed. Visitors who knew to Radiant Garden could mistake this world as that world's former name: Hollow Bastion thanks to the much destruction this world has been through a very short time.

However, not everything was in ruins in this barren world. Between the ruins of a once beautiful area of the city stood a church, inside this mostly intact church were a bed of colorful flowers. Humming beside the flowers was a little girl, she had made it her task watering the flowers and in turn made this church a pretty place to visit. Especially for one person who often came here to find a little solace in his usual dark life.

Standing nearby stood Tifa, someone who has aided Sora and friends a few times in the past when she searched for Cloud in Radiant Garden. She found him in this world- their homeworld and aided him to defeat a dark-hearted man named Sephiroth. Sadly that had only been part of the battle, the second part was still being fought, this world's residents, mostly the children were suffering from a disease many called the stigma and caused the affected tremendous of pain and slowly weaken them to in the end let them get swallowed by the Heartless.

Cloud was often out there, searching for a cure but so far had no luck.

Suddenly, out from nowhere, a purple bullet landed right beside Tifa's feet, snapping her out from her thoughts and looked upward to the broken ceiling. On the once second floor of the church sat an elderly man with an eye patch over the right eye and a long scar on the left cheek. This man wore a black cloak that told her that this person wasn't one of the good guys so she told the girl Marlene to seek cover.

The one-eyed man smirked down at her. "For someone who isn't known to be subtle when fighting, you sure were difficult to find."

"What do you want?" Tifa asked him in a hard tone.

The man's smirk grew a little wider as he nodded towards the spot where Marlene hid. Tifa gasped shocked at this and for a moment almost didn't hear what the man said. "From our observations, your friend is not one to be trifled with. But he does have one clear weakness and we need that since he is getting a tad too close if you get my drift." He got on his feet, lazily summoning a pair of arrow guns. "So I will be taking the kid if you don't mind."

He got Tifa's reply on that with her punching the spot where he stood seconds ago.

Braig did expect she would response like that. Landing on a fallen pillar, he reloaded his guns, grinning. "Let's see how good of a dancer you are." And he fired several shots at her.

Tifa dodged most of them, only two hit and slightly stunned her but that was all he needed. Braig ran around her while firing several explosive bullets that was held back by his gravity element. They only moved when he was once again up on the second floor. Tifa hasn't time to dodge this attack and ended on the flowerbed, however not beaten just yet, she fits angrily her hand and jumped up after the one-eyed man who jumped away from her attack that destroyed most of the second floor.

He landed near the flowers, glancing grinning to her. "Easy there, can't have you destroy rest of this-" He got rudely interrupted by Tifa slamming him into the nearby wall and would probably have cracked his skull with one of her punches if he hadn't teleported away. Tifa eyes caught him and charged at the man, Braig kept on dodging her attacks, trying to distance himself since his attack worked best at a distance while Tifa tried getting in close because most of her attacks were with punching. Braig succeed getting a bit away from her and shot a powerful bullet at her that send Tifa through the room but she quickly regained herself and landed on the wall so hard that the flowers underneath her flew up in a rain of petals.

Tifa turned her eyes to the man in the end of the room, noticing he was out of bullets and refused to let that chance slip up. She took off from the wall, grabbed and hurled the defenseless Braig into the floor that broke from the impact. She landed on the floor again, scanning the broken area for the man but when there were no signs of him coming back up, both she and the girl Marlene presumed that he was out for good. Marlene ran giggling over to Tifa who smiled waited for the girl to come over. None of them saw the figure appear on a pillar and put the two arrow guns together into a sniper rifle.

Braig smirked aimed at the unaware Tifa. "Game set." He fired. "And match."

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

"What was that?" Sora asked from the echoed sound of a shot, looking around the ruins he and his friends just had arrived at. The two others looked around for the source as well, that until Kairi spotted someone standing on the church's roof with someone smaller. "Someone is over there!"

Sora and Riku turned and recognized the man right away, or rather what group he was in. "The organization!"

Sora was quick to move towards the church. "Come on!" Although there was no chance for them following Braig, still Sora wanted to check what one of the members of the organization was doing inside this building. Inside the church Sora spotted a familiar face and ran over to the badly wounded Tifa, he healed her and asked worried. "Are you alright?"

Tifa slowly got on her feet, nodding, that until she remembered what the one-eyed man came here for. "Marlene!" She scanned the church but no little girl was around. "No..."

Riku stepped a little closer to Tifa telling her a little sad they couldn't stop the the one-eyed man. "We spotted another person beside Xigbar, a little girl, was that Marlene?"

Tifa nodded sad. "Tes... he needed her to stop Cloud."

"Cloud's here?" Sora asked both surprised and happy another alliance was in this world.

Again Tifa nodded and thought it might be best explaining Sora and his two friends of the situation in this world and what happen after Cloud disappeared in his battle with Sephiroth.

"Cloud succeed defeating Sephiroth, but not before he did harm to this world." Tifa explained the trio standing around her, she told them that Sephiroth used his darkness to taint the world and unlike most other worlds residents that have more or less gotten a bit immune against the Heartless's darkness, the people here couldn't handle the darkness and that caused a lot of people to get horrible sick. "Most people call it Stigma, and they believe the Shinra company is causing this, but I believe it is the darkness Sephiroth pledged the world is causing this." Tifa sighed but did continue. "The stigma is mostly affecting children, and for each day; we lose a child to the Heartless."

"How horrible." Kairi said horrified by how bad it was going for this world. This was worse than when their island- their world got swallowed, at least the people in their world got mostly unscathed away from the whole deal.

Sora went over to Tifa, like many other time when coming to a new world; he could not stand by and do nothing when he could help. "Anything we can do?"

Tifa turned to him, feeling uncertain what Sora and his two friends could do. Well, maybe they could help Cloud. "I would be grateful if you aid Cloud, he could use some friends in all of this."

"Sure, any idea where he might be?"

Tifa pointed towards the setting sun in the horizon. "Outside the city you will find him, last I heard he was heading towards the forgotten capital. He is searching for a cure to the stigma."

And that's where they would go.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Inside the Forgotten capitol, Braig went along with a small flock of children, all had been coming here in the promise that they could be healed from the stigma, the one-eyed man stopped the following children near a lake that glows slightly in the darkness thanks to its unnatural purity. "Wait here." He told them and took the scared but also struggling Marlene over to a slender man with same cat-like eyes as Sephiroth, this man stood on the other side of the lake and had patiently waited for Braig to deliver all the diseased children to him. "That should be enough for your plan." Braig said and took a firmer grip around Marlene, making her stop struggling in fright.

The silver-haired man smiled to him. "Yeah, they will help us find mother." He went towards the awaiting children, spread his arms in a welcome and said to the slightly frighten children.

"Mother has given me a very special gift." The man began speaking "She gave this gift, to all her children. That's right." He smiled almost friendly towards the flock of children "You and I are brethren, brothers and sisters chosen to inherited mother's legacy." His smile faltered, but continued on his speech in anger towards what he thought was doing them harm "But this world doesn't improve that at all. It's doing anything it can to hold us back. That's why it's wreaking our bodies with pain and filling our hearts with doubt." The children flinched slightly by those words because all knew exactly what pain this man spoke about, a pain they all so much wanted gone. And the man- Kadaj knew it, he knew that's would be the reason why they came and he would use it to his advantages, although he saw this new army of his as more than mere minions. "Now I shall heal you and we will go to mother together, we will join as a family and strike back at this world." He once again smiled to the freighted children.

"Do as I do." Kajad went into the pure water, for each step deeper in the water, it got tainted by the darkness he was the vessel for. He took a handful of the tainted water and drank it. After a moment of hesitating, the children followed his example, but none of them got healed as they had hoped. Instead, the new darkness only made them almost as mindless as a Heartless, although not yet having the need to hunt for hearts. Instead, these children would not be able to make real thoughts, they were trapped in a darkness and only a stronger darkness, in this case, Kajad would make them react and do what he wanted.

On the shore Braig watched the darkness further taint the hearts of these poor children, he watched them, one by one stand with slightly glowing yellow eyes, waiting for Kajad or someone else dark hearted would give them the next command. He grinned at the sight although he wasn't completely sure why.

"Was this part of your master plan?"

Braig snapped out from his glee and turned to the captured Adria, his smile faded from the condition she was in- what he did to her. He admitted that she did put one hell of a fight, then again; he was the one who trained her.

Adria eyed the man before her, no longer sure if it was her uncle or Xehanort she spoke to anymore. "An old tale said that light from children created these worlds we live in when darkness swallowed the former." She turned her eyes to the zombie-like children. "So tainting these children proves that theory wrong? That even the purity of a child can be darkened. You just forgot one single thing old man." She turned back to the watching Braig, shooting him a death glare. "The story was just a fairy tale and you're killing children to prove it."

"It merely proves that no one is pure, darkness is part of a child as well." Braig replied with a calmness that was so unlike him, not that the man noticed, though.

Adria rolled her eyes of what she saw as obvious. "Of course it is, you can't have light without a shadow, a moron could have told you that."

Braig narrowed his eye of that remark, although a small part of him found Adria's sneering kinda funny. "Every moron?" He asked, smirking teasing to her.

Adria wouldn't get further into the subject, instead, she asked him. "Tell me something Braig... is all of this really worth your goal? Whatever that is."

That took Braig off guard, at first, he wanted to say that, of course, all of this was worth it, but... looking at the children, knowing that the unnatural darkness that got into their bodies was slowly killing them. Looking at Adria, the once child he trained and gave her wise-cracks on life. He remembered back when he trained her to become a guard like him. Thinking back to those times, he realized how much he actually enjoyed those days. How much he appreciated his comradery with Dilan and Aleaus.

Heck!

He was friends with those two! He even had a decent relationship with Even and got a few laughs out from the back then very shy Ienzo. That all changed when Xehanort came, promised him power, promised him a keyblade; the strongest weapon of them all. He wasn't interested in power, and how the man spoke about it. it got him fascinated in the keyblade its abilities and... and... that had been enough for Xehanort to drag him into this— but before Braig could realize how wrong he was going into this mess. His train of thoughts got broken by Xehanort's heart fragment inside his own heart, snapping him back to this experiment and that nothing else mattered, not even his own blood.

"It is." He said, but unlike others who couldn't read him as well as Adria wouldn't have seen the spark of doubt flashing through his eye for a split second.

"Tell yourself that enough times and you might believe it." Adria said hard, not really the person to show sympathy, it wouldn't really help Braig anyway. he was more the tough love kind of guy.

Braig eyed her once before he left but Xehanort's heart couldn't remove the thoughts Adria's words made him think. He hated being confronted, being the one pulled around by the nose with words, he wanted to be the one doing that.


	9. Chapter 9: Tainted Darkness part 2

Sora and his friends found Cloud in the last second as the man was about to disappear into the glowing forest.  
"Cloud!" Sora called and the man stopped, allowing the keyblade wielders to come up to him. "We're here to help." Sora said  
. Cloud didn't show any real emotions of this little fact from Sora, he simply nodded and went into the forest, this time with the three close behind him.  
"Tifa told us about what happen." Sora said to the silent man.

Cloud face didn't change much, only his eyes showed a deep pain in what he thought he had caused to this world.

Riku eyed the blond man for a moment, noticing the almost same pain in Cloud eyes he had back when he fought against Xeanort's darkness, but he didn't say anything as he wasn't sure what words to this man would hurt or help. He wanted to say something, though. But what could—  
Riku's thought was broken when several bullets flew past them, only luck made them miss the group. The group was however prepared for the next waves of bullets, Sora doughed some of them to send a glare towards one of the few people he wouldn't regret using his keyblade on.

The human of Xigbar reloaded his arrow guns, ready to yet another wave. Beside him stood a very smug Kadaj. Cloud spotted the two and with very little thoughts; he charged at the two with his blade ready to strike either of them down. Kadaj grinned and with several hand waves up to the sky, a pack of brainwashed children jumped down from the trees, standing between Kadaj and Cloud.

Only if he wanted to hurt the very children he came to save; Cloud had no other choice than to stop his attack. Before he could think of getting to Kadaj without harming the children, the silver-haired villain jump-kicked him and said taunting to the down man.  
"I'm glad you could make it."  
Cloud wasn't down for long, though, the jump-kick hadn't been strong enough to really do any harm. "I only came here for the kids." He said back, he didn't really care much about Kadaj and the other man.

Kadaj didn't really care what Cloud had to say either as he got a really strong vendetta against the blond which Cloud not yet had figured out why. "See this man?" He said loudly out to the zombie-like kids. "He's our big brother."

That made Sora startled turn towards the blond but Cloud neither confirmed or denied what Kadaj had said.

"But alas in our happy flock." Kadaj pointed his double blade sword against the blond. "He's what you call a black sheep."  
Kadaj lifted his blade to attack but was stopped by Riku making one of his sheilds between the two, giving Cloud just the time he needed to pick up his blade and strike out after Kadaj just as the sheild faded. The silver haired man dogded but Cloud refused letting him go and rapidly followed.

Sora, Riku and Kairi turned towards Braig but the man simply smiled with a shrug. "Three against one? That doesn't seem fair." He pulled out a king chess piece, instead of a crone or a knight figure, this one had the head of a bear. "Awaken!" He called and threw up the piece. A dark orb surrounded the chess peice and out from the orb arrived Ursus keeper and it was clear that the bear were no longer on their side. The Bear Keeper roared, surrounded itself in stone and like a deadly football charged at the three keyblade wielders.

"Watch out!" Kairi cried and they all jumped away from the ball of death that completely ignored the surrounding children. The Bear Keeper went to another attack, this time having the kids in the crossfire but the children did not even try move away from the approaching ball of death. Riku quickly acted, he jumped in between and used all his magic on the shield to protect himself and the zombie-like children from the Keeper's attack. just as his last magic was drained, the Keeper stopped its attack and turned into a bear again. "We can't fight it like this!" He told the two others and jumped away from the Bear Keeper's claws.

Sora couldn't agree more, they needed to keep the children safe, so they were forced to ignore Braig (who taunted them by leaving casually) and instead remove the children away from the berserker Keeper. That task itself was hard as the Keeper was a force to be reconed with. It destroyed everything in its path and the three wielders had to more than once sacrifice their own safety for the brainwashed children. In the end they lost against the Keeper and even Cloud couldn't defeat Kadaj thanks to the trashing Keeper and it kept on destroying the only source that could keep him away from its deadly roll attack: the glowing trees.

Cloud did try and attack Kadaj one last time but was hit by the bear keeper's claws and ended close to unconsions on the ground. Kadaj landed beside the enraged acting Keeper, grinning went to put Cloud and his friends out of their misery.  
Then, suddenly the bear Keeper landed on the ground, having a keyblade into its side. Someone small in size took the keyblade and moved so fast that Kadaj couldn't get a clear veiw on the newcomer, didn't stop him from attacking, though. He charged at the newcomer but was stopped dead when this new keyblade wielder sommoned a cartoonish wall by a stroke of their keyblade. The silver haired man struck down the sommoned wall and stared at the fading of a portal created by eletricity. He sneered, angry that they got away, still it did not change his plans. He glanced to the bear keeper as it got back on its feet and turned back into the king chess peice since it needed time to recharge its powers. Kadaj picked up the peice and with a handmove to the children to follow, they left the battlefield of the forest.

***  
"Thanks for the help." Sora said to their rescuer.

Oswald shrugged slightly before asking them a little harshly. "Any changes you spotted Ursus? He's not the type who lend out his Keeper to anyone."  
Sora, Riku, and Kairi all shook their heads. Oswald let out a defeated sight. "Guess the book was right on one thing: they won't be themselves anymore..." And before the three could ask the rabbit what he meant by that, Oswald made another question. "What was the deal with those kids? They reacted on their surroundings just as much my kids does before a television screen."

"Kadaj has done something to them." Cloud replied a little dull to the rabbit.

Oswald turned to the man as Cloud explained that many of this world's residents, especally children was poisoned by a darkness caused by Sephiroth. Oswald crossed his arms and went a bit back and foward in deep thoughts. "That does sound familiar..." He stopped his pacing and asked in wonder with eyes up to the night sky. "But from where?" He had been traviling to so many places and been in a mess of a time jump that tales and legends often got mixed together. Then it hit him. "The re-creation of the worlds! They were recreated from the light of children." He gasped shocked, but that quickly turned into anger. "What kind of monster is using children as an experiment? For all I know that tale could just be a legend! It wasn't like all the worlds got destroyed by the war!" He stomped hard into the ground to vent a little of his anger.

Sora and Kairi both felt sorry for the rabbit but none of them was sure how to help, Riku, on the other hand, noticed something that caught his attention in how the rabbit spoke. "You speak like you know what happed." Oswald turned to the silver-haired boy, eyes slightly furrowed. Didn't stop Riku from continue, though. "You seems to know the Foretellers on a personal level although it is clear they come from a distance past."  
He eyed the rabbit. "Are you from that same past?"

"No, I'm from this timeline." Oswald admitted solemnly to get tense in anger. "..." He mused something under his breathe but none of the humans could hear his words.

"What did you say?" Sora asked but all he got from the now angry rabbit was a glare and the change of topic. "What are your plan stopping this mess?" Turning to Cloud who has been mostly silint under this whole convisation. "If you don't stop this darkness from spreading, then all who has been affcted will fall to the darkness and create incredible powerful Heartless. In other words:" He turned away from them, looking up to the sky. "This world will fall and I doubt it will be the last." Those last words were from his own experiance in what happened if someone evil or dumb enough starts mess with the power balance of light and darkness.

***

Under the fight, it had succeed Adria getting free from her bindings and used the chaos of the trashing Keeper to get the only child not brainwashed away from the mess.

The little girl was happy to be saved but also sad that she had been forced to leave the other kids behind. "Where are we going?" Marlene asked this other woman, feeling unsure if this one could be trusted as she got kinda the same feels from this woman as she got from the one-eyed man.

Adria didn't answer her, she kept on scanning the forest for something. The only words she spoke to the girl was when she found what she was looking for. "This way." And in matter of steps, they found Cloud and the others.  
Marlene was overjoyed seeing her protector. "Cloud!" And ran towards the man.

Sora turned to Adria, surprised seeing her again and here of all places. "What are you doing here, Adria?"  
He still wasn't sure if he would call Adria a friend since she constantly was shifting from being helpful to actually try and harm him or his friends. One thing was for sure though, if anyone would know what was going on it would be her.

Adria crossed her arms but did tell Sora. "I was helping an old sparring partner searching for something, but I ended up getting caught by Kadaj and Braig." Which made her feel like a complete newbie.

Riku, also realizing Adria's ability catching up what others might miss asked her a bit hopeful. "Do you know where they are after or where they are heading?"

"I can tell you what they are after but if you want to know where they are heading; then you better give me good reason to figure that out for you." Adria said with a small grin, as if risking her life for info was some kind of fun hobby for her. The group just stared at her. Adria cleared her throat but not because of the awkwardness. "Kadaj is searching for the keyhole of this world: Braig or Xehanort, whatever it is, is speaking through that old fool's mouth; tricking Kadaj to think that the keyhole is what he is searching for."

"And what is he searching for?" Cloud asked, however already dreading the answer from how Kadaj spoke to him like they were brothers.

Adria eyed him with a look that told she knew of his fears but didn't really care about them. "Sephiroth."

"Sephiroth is death." Cloud said, he should know; he was the one who dealt the final blow.

Adria quirks a smirk. "Are you sure you got everything? Like: his heart?"

Cloud let out a small gasp but other than that kept his composer, he narrowed his eyes towards Adria. "Where is it?"

To that Adria couldn't answer him, but she knew who would. "You have to ask Shinra about that. I and some from his team went after the remains of Sephiroth." Looking lazily up to the sky. " Reno and his patner should have delivered the "pacage" to Shinra unless Reno was dumb enough let them get captured."

Cloud let out a small growl, he had a feeling Shinra had been hiding something from him. He would've loved payng him a visit but Shinra was probably long gone by now and Cloud hadn't really the time tracking the man down. At least he does know where the two others Adria spoke about whereabout. "I need to speak with someone." He got back on his feet and with Marlene holding his hand; Cloud left the forest. Sora, Riku, Kairi and Oswald followed, Adria did as well but more in the background as she was scooting the area as they went.

***  
Back at the place Cloud and Tifa had been calling home along with the children they took care off, Cloud confronted two men, one black and broad man whose eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. This one took Cloud's confrontation rather calmly and only gave the blond a few short replies. His partner on the other hand, sure he too took Cloud's small anger rather calmly but he was way more talktive than the dark skinned man. He had striking red, messy hair and he looked awfully familiar to someone else the keyblade wielders knew.

"He looks like Lea." Sora mused to his friends, Kairi nodded and like Sora couldn't help but wonder if this man which went by the name Reno knew Lea.

Much to Cloud's frustrations, the two haven't revealed anything useful of where Sephiroth heart was now nor where their boss was as well.

"You are really making this difficult." He growled at the two, just to get further annoyed when Reno said a bit too carefree for the situation. "Kadaj will have to dig up the city if he wishes to find it."

"This is serious!" Tifa snapped at the red haired, Reno just smirked laidback. "Relax we got it under control."

He glanced to Adria who has been listing to the whole convisation from a small distance. "What did you learn?"

Adria sat her bow down to her lap before revealing what she found. "Kadaj is only just a poppet, he's not the one pulling the strings and..." She hesitated slightly but did say what else she had discovered. "Neither is Braig, he's a poppet too"

"Why do you speak about him like he's controlled?" Sora asked the two frowning, Braig seemed to one of those people who willingly joined Xehanort cause and accepted the man's heart without protest. "he seemed pretty happy he had part of Xehanort inside of him."

"Whose Xehanort?" Reno asked confused but Adria brushed his quistion off with: "No time to explain." Before turning back to Sora. "Yes, he chose this path, that he made clear. But I do not think Braig knew excakly what he were getting himself into when he chose to help Xehanort and betray Ansem."

"You forget." Reno crossed his arms, looking serious for a chance to the black haired woman. "Braig loved his job. Why would he betray the king?"

"You haven't met Xehanort." Riku mused, unlike most he knew how good that man was in persuading people doing something they usually wouldn't do.

Reno opened his mouth but chose not to speak the objection he had in mind. He honestly never thought his teacher in battle would sink so low. He chuckled darkly. "And I actually looked up to that guy..."

"Wait what?" Sora blinked, getting confused again. "You looked up to him?" He had a hard time seeing anyone looking up to someone like Braig.

Adria gave the brunette a glare from his naive perspective of the world. "No one is born evil, because if that's the case then you should strike me as well." After all, she had once attacked Sora and she would probably do it again if she got hired to do it.

Sora wouldn't do such a thing to Adria, sure she was bad in the start and he might not still trust her fully but he do consider her part of the team. "Why would I do such a thing?"

"Because Braig is my uncle." Adria replied coldly, and Reno added to the keyblade wielder's bigger shock.

"And I don't regret to admit that I share lots of his point of views on things."

Sora wanted to speak against it, argue that Adria and Reno were nothing like Braig but the words wouldn't leave his mouth for deep inside he could see that these two had parts of the Freeshooters attitude.

Riku quickly got over the shock hearing this, but unlike Sora he knew the diffirence between good and evil was more grey than most would think , but he don't think they can help Braig at this point. "we can't help him."

"And I am not asking." Adria replied, ignoring the look Reno gave her. "I know the safety of this world and the others out there is way more important. I just wanted to tell you that even the worst of the worst has been good once." And with those words Adria got on her feet and left the room "I'm going out to scout for Kadaj"

"We should be ready as well." Oswald said he had not intervened in the convisations since he had no buisness in this. But with most of the talk over, he thought it was about time they reaided themsleves for the upcoming battle against Kadaj, Braig and Ursus's Keeper.

about 15 minutes later Adria returned with the whereabout of Kadaj, he was near and trying to destroy a monument of some sort. The was the cue they needed.

Reno, Rude, Adria and Oswald would try find and keep Braig busy, Reno and Adria both knew that if they didn't find the man then Braig would cause trouble for the other team that went after Kadaj and the Keeper.  
Sora, Riku, Tifa, Kairi and Cloud would go head front towards Kadaj, hopefully keep the silver-haired too occupied to find the keyhole or Sephiroth missing heart.


End file.
